


summer lovin'

by myticanlegends



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Awkwardness, Canon Trans Character, Filmmaker David, Flirting, ITALY!, Language Barrier, M/M, Matteo and David are in love, Overthinking Bastard Boys, Pasta, Stefan is also there somehow idk either, Temporary Pining, Waiter Matteo, chaotic gays, i cannot emphasis this enough, its a Summertime Romance my dudes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2020-09-25 06:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20372197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myticanlegends/pseuds/myticanlegends
Summary: David is studying abroad for the summer in Tuscany, Italy, and swears he is a fully functioning human being. That is, until he sees Matteo, a waiter at a nearby Italian restaurant that catches his eye far more than a stranger should.





	1. met a boy cute as can be

David considers himself a very worldly person. In high school, he mastered three different languages by spending all the time he had on the train glued to his phone and Language to German dictionaries. When he graduated, he and Laura put together a road trip to Spain. He visited Amira in Australia that year. After he met Essam and Omar, they started teasing him on how much time he spent in the library reading about Detroit, or Amsterdam, or Istanbul, or whatever he wanted to go at the time, but they hadn’t complained when David knew exactly where to go when they visited Austria the next summer. And as complicated as his relationship with his parents had been, they hadn’t failed to teach him a lot about their Middle Eastern culture (unlike how they failed him in general, but that was more of a subject to bring up with this therapist than in casual conversation).

So he thinks that when he goes to Italy for a film course abroad before his final year of university, he will be fine. David never learned Italian but that’s okay, he’s a quick learner. He starts back up again on DuoLingo a month or so in advance and googles basic phrases he’ll need to know. He’s not, and hates being, a helpless person. He is self sufficient. Another country? A piece of cake.

That’s right up until his first week in the program when he sees the most beautiful boy in the world. Anything he knows in Italian flies out the window. He can’t even think in German — his mind comes to a halt and tries putting itself back together again in a pile of nonsense.

As a pansexual, he thinks a lot of people are attractive. It’s part of the both advantages and disadvantages of being pan. Gender has never played any part in who he likes, and pessimistic as he can be, he thinks there’s a little beauty in all of humanity. 

But this person is Cute with a capital letter. David can think of lots of adjectives. Beautiful. Soft. The boy smiles at someone he is taking an order from and David also thinks, Adorable.

David must look lost standing outside the fairy lights of the restaurant’s awning and awkwardly pointed toward the entrance, because the boy glances over and approaches him with his little notebook and apron and asks him something in Italian. David had literally just decided to go somewhere to eat that evening and it’s unfair for him to be subjected to have to process anything that isn’t the slope of this boy’s nose when he is this hungry and it’s this late at night. It’s not his fault that the waiter is so Cute. The restaurant was supposed to have been an innocuous choice where David could just chill and be alone for an hour with a good helping of pasta.

The boy tilts his head at him for an answer and after much too long David gets enough of a grip on himself to stumble out, “Um, can you repeat that in English?”

It’s at least an excuse for staring so long.

The boy stares blankly at him, then frowns, then scrunches his nose adorably as he looks up in an effort of translating. David wants to die. He knows English is more common here than German and he is too used to having it as a backup plan to be able to handle a cute boy who doesn’t know English at all, and likely doesn't know German, or French, or any of the other languages David knows. He immediately switches plans to remember any Italian that might help, but somehow his brain has decided it is more important to catalog the exact shade of blue of the boy’s eyes.

In the end, it is the boy who bridges their language barrier in broken English, “Table for one?”

David wonders if that’s sad. To be eating by himself. The boy probably thinks it’s sad. But in less than a week, David had already gotten to the point where he needs a break from the rest of the university students. The only one on the trip that he’d invite would be Essam but even he wears David out sometimes.  _ Especially _ Essam wears him out.

“Yeah,” he admits.

He drags his eyes away from the boy’s face so that he can have the chance to break out of the panicked and completely unhelpful  _ cutecutecutecutecute  _ repetitive thought running through his head. It only serves to help him notice a name tag. Matteo. His waiter’s name is Matteo, and it’s Cute and Italian just like Matteo.

Matteo shrugs like sitting alone isn’t sad at all, and then smiles again, and David follows him to small corner table under the awning on the cobble in a daze. Before he can pull himself together, he is handed a menu and left on his own.

David collects himself. He looks over the menu. He’s done this almost a dozen times since arriving in Italy. He knows the pronunciations and how to order food. It was the first thing he googled. If he can save Matteo any effort in trying to translate his English, or even impress him with his ability to order in Italian, that’s a bonus. It’s also an impossibility, because when Matteo comes back, he suddenly can’t remember any of it again and he hasn’t been able to decide what he wants. Other than the fact he wants Matteo, but Matteo isn’t on the menu.

“Do you know what you want to order?” Matteo asks, reciting something from memory like he had just asked someone for a quick recap. He looks so proud of himself that David blurts out the first thing he had been thinking of ordering before he can say something completely unrelated to the food at all, “Pasta.”

Matteo tilts his head in amusement and fucking smirks, the little asshole. David should not find  _ that  _ attractive but goddamn. Cocky and Cute? Completely unfair to David when all he wants to do is function like a normal human being. “What pasta?”

David looks back down at his menu. It’s all in Italian, and it’s the most complicated menu that he’s seen so far. And while he could just point, he does have  _ rules _ about this sort of thing which are namely, don’t point because it’s uncultured and rude, and also, don’t eat seafood when you don’t know where they get it. He had a terrible experience with Laura on his graduation trip and since then, unless they’re by the shore, David does not trust fish. Unfortunately, he has learned that lots of places in central Italy still serve fish even if it's not locally sourced.

So David picks the first pasta he can find that he recognizes the most words in, zeroes in on the word he doesn’t remember because he can’t _think_ _straight_ (pun intended), and asks, “What does _mollusco _mean?”

Matteo looks up again as he tries to think about the definition. It’s dark enough this evening that the fairy lights tied around the edges of the awning make his face look soft and shadowed, and highlight his fluttering eyelashes, and David stares. When Matteo looks back down he just shrugs. 

David doesn’t have to know Italian, or have anything said at all, to know that Matteo has no clue what the English word for that is.

“Is it a type of seafood?” David tries.

Matteo continues to stare at him. David sighs and tries to think of another way to communicate. Matteo’s eyes track David's hand as he runs it through his hair in frustration at his own ability to remember anything in Italian that might help, and then Matteo turns slightly pink and finally blinks when he realizes David noticed him watching. As if David had ever looked away. Which is - interesting. David bites back a smile.

But he is still on a mission, and by god, he is not having a repetition of The Fish Incident, so he tries again.

“You know, fish,” he repeats, and then hopes no one is watching when he swallows his pride and sucks in his cheeks, puckers his lips, and pretends to swim. At least the other university students aren’t here. And thank  _ god _ Essam isn’t. He’d never live it down, and there is a  _ lot  _ of things that Essam is able to hold over his head. He repeats himself, ignoring his embarrassed cheeks, just so that Matteo gets the point, “Seafood.”

Matteo grins at him, and to David’s complete further embarrassment, makes the same face and motions back at him. “Ah,  _ frutti di mare _ . _Si_, that pasta has seafood.”

“Then I don’t want it,” David says.

Matteo looks between him and the menu in bafflement. “What  _ do  _ you want?”

And in a desperate attempt to never do anything like pretending to be a fish again, David’s eyes finally  _ finally  _ catch onto something on the menu that he knows, and he repeats it in relief just to save them both from awkward translations. It isn’t what he wanted but it’ll do. Matteo repeats it back at him just to make sure he got it right as he writes it onto his notepad. They both seem to be on the same page. Matteo smiles at him again, flips the notebook closed, and then disappears after saying something in Italian that David is finally able to translate as, “Your food will be out soon.”

David falls forward on his face. Tonight, he is going to be going over every single bit of Italian he knows and complete more lessons so that this never happens again. He is a grown ass adult who has almost finished university and he is being reduced to a fool in high school. He doesn’t know if he can ever come back here. At least Matteo seemed to think his attempts to communicate were amusing, but David doesn’t want to go around making fish faces at people. Much less Cute boys who probably think he is an idiot. He doesn't know what it means that Matteo did it back at him, if it means anything at all, but he's not going to get the adorable image of Matteo's puckered cheeks out of his head for a while.

He pulls out his phone and goes straight for google translate. He learns the word for fish ( _ pesce _ ) for future reference. He also learns what  _ mollusco  _ means (clam). David remembers Matteo’s small blush as he had been caught staring, and toys with the idea of finding some flirtatious phrases in Italian. He decides that he doesn’t have the guts or the time. David has work to do for class, and while he’s had his narrative film planned for weeks, he has to have a short documentary for his final grade too and he has no idea what it’ll be on. It’s more stressful than he thought it would be, but he doesn’t want to interview a random local artisan. Between figuring out an entire project and completing another one, David is too busy to flirt with local waiters.

When he looks up from his phone, Matteo is giving a nearby couple a shared pizza. There is music playing from the kitchen that sounds too stereotypically Italian to be geared towards anyone but actual Italians, but it just makes the atmosphere feel romantic. Italian is, unfortunately, a very romantic language. The couple is drinking wine and they look happy. There is another couple beside them, and a glimpse of more sitting inside.

David suddenly feels self conscious sitting here alone. It’s not just couples. There is a family to his right. A group of friends laugh nearby. It’s a popular restaurant. David would go so far to guess it’s a town favorite. But no one is sitting by themselves.

It doesn’t happen very often, but there are moments where David longs for something missing. Laura thinks it’s because he’s lonely. Before he left, she told him very seriously to make more friends with his fellow university students, because Essam doesn’t count anymore. And yet here he sits. Alone. He hasn’t talked to most of the other students except about assignments and assisting on different projects for participation. Getting to know the other students feels like a facade, like he’d be doing it just to be friendly, but when he watches Matteo slip between the tables, he thinks that he genuinely wants to get to know someone. Someone being Matteo.

But by the time that Matteo comes around with a pitcher of water to pour, David remains set on not doing anything at all.

Matteo does not have the same idea. He scrunches up his nose again and asks with obvious effort, “How do you like Italy?”

“It’s very beautiful,” David answers. And despite just deciding he doesn’t have time for Matteo the waiter, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to get to know him, so he adds conversationally, “You’re lucky to live here.”

Matteo’s tongue sticks out a little in concentration, the small fairy lights and the light of the window still shining beautifully on his face, and when comprehension dawns on him, his gaze automatically flicks over towards the door of the restaurant. 

“I don’t live here,” he admits. “Just the summer.”

“Me too,” David smiles.

“Tourist,” Matteo teases.

“What does that make you?” David teases back.

Matteo smirks again, and David tries his best not to die. “I’m always Italian.”

“Ah,” David says, nodding knowingly, and Matteo grins at him. David grins too.

“Matteo!” Someone shouts from inside, and then rambles on about food and timing and a couple words David has not gotten the chance to look up. But he recognizes the tone. Matteo is supposed to be working.

“Sorry,” Matteo apologizes, as if David would ever feel bad the time that Matteo has spent talking with him. He selfishly wants more. “Pasta-” Matteo sighs dramatically. “-never sleeps.”

“You live a life of pasta,” David agrees solemnly.

“ _ Si _ ,” Matteo says. David does not doubt his completely seriousness on the crucialness of pasta. Matteo’s arm moves awkwardly like he wants to do something with it and his hand brushes on David’s arm, like a friendly pat that had decided to do something else last minute, before Matteo is escaping inside with an equally awkward, “ _ Ciao _ !”

David is, and he means this as dramatically as possible but also not dramatically at all, in love. He knows it like he knows that pasta might as well be Matteo’s bloodline, and as well as how he knows the stories that he will one day film. He knows it like he knows a pen in his hand, and the shape of Matteo’s features that he’s already memorized to sketch later.

David wants to dramatically fall on his face again but if he’s going to start acting cool, he might as well start now. So, as is natural considering his levels of cool, he falls backward against his chair with a groaned, “Fuck me.”

A plate of pasta hits the table as it is set down. Service here is apparently faster than David anticipated. Along with the food comes Matteo muttering in flawless German, “Gladly.”

David stares at him. Matteo seems oblivious to the fact that David knows, and is, German, and smiles in greeting again. David doesn’t stop staring. Matteo turns a little red, tilting his head in confusion, and then gestures down to the bowl he has set in front of him with the cocky explanation of, “Your pasta.”

“Danke,” David says a little weakly.

Matteo’s reaction is instantaneous. His face flushes the brightest red that David has ever seen. Yet somehow, Matteo keeps his composure as he licks his lips before asking very clearly in their new common language, “You know German?”

“I am German,” David answers, also in German.

Matteo continues turning red and fumbles for something to say to defuse the tension of him insinuating he would gladly have sex with David. David continues to stare. There is enough of him that is functional to recognizes that he has two different options. He can either let it go, and save them both from this mess Matteo accidentally walked into, or he can flirt back. They have a common language now. It wouldn’t be as useless as an attempt, and David  _ had  _ wanted to get to know him. He wants to get to know Matteo in all the ways he can, and he has the perfect segway.

But attraction is a completely different thing than getting to know someone. He doesn’t know what Matteo might want from him, or expect, and David hasn’t had to have the transgender talk in a very long time. Is it just because Matteo thinks David is hot? Does he  _ just _ want to sleep with him? How would he react to knowing that the David he sees now is not the David people think he is? David has baggage, and anxieties, and he’s in his final year of university with no relationship on his record for this very reason. He tends to think too far ahead and is already in a panic just thinking about what could happen if he ever opened that door. It’s too much to get into for someone he’ll know for such a short amount of time, no matter how Cute he is.

So he lets it go.

David gives Matteo a friendly smile and asks, like he hadn’t heard anything at all, “So is this a work abroad type situation for you?”

Matteo grins, relief falling over his face, and David thinks he made the right decision. Then when Matteo lets out a small laugh that sounds like the purest thing David has ever heard and probably ever will, he has never regretted a decision more. 

“The restaurant has been in my family forever, which my dad thinks means I have to learn the business every summer. So-“ Matteo holds up his pen and notebook instead of finishing his sentence.

“You wait tables,” David fills in the blanks.

“I wait tables,” Matteo agrees, pouting.

“That doesn’t seem very family business-y.”

Matteo glances back towards the restaurant door again before leaning in, his breath soft and close, “He won’t let me see the top secret recipes.”

“Oh?” David asks. He folds his arms over the table and leans closer as well. They are only a few inches away from each other. He’s torturing himself a little, pretending it could be this simple, but god, it really could be this easy to try if he were anyone else. He thinks he sees Matteo’s pretty blue eyes flicker down to his mouth and it makes his breath catch. “So you’re a chef?”

Matteo swallows. “I’m a waiter.”

“But you’d like to be?”

“I’d like to be,” Matteo repeats softly.

“Matteo!” The voice shouts again, and both David and Matteo start away from each other. When David looks towards the restaurant door, he can see an imposing, dirty-haired man calling out at them. David can see how he’d look a lot like his son. But from the expression on his face, David doesn’t think he’s anything like Matteo at all.

An idea hatches. A completely insane, selfishly motivated idea, just so that David can spend even a second more of time with Matteo, but an idea nonetheless.

“Matteo?” David asks. “Can I do a documentary about you? It’s just a short one, for a class I’m taking, but I-“ He has no justification for this other than the fact he thinks Matteo has the potential to be the most fascinating person he’s met. He says something honest, “I think it could be fun.”

Matteo doesn’t shoot the idea down immediately, like David would have expected. He thinks it over and then asks a skeptical, “You’d be directing me?”

David laughs, “It’d be your story, but yes. I’d be directing you.”

“I don’t have a story,” Matteo says, baffled.

“I think you do,” David disagrees.

Matteo studies him and then shrugs, like saying, _ it’s your project if it fails _ , and gives a simple, “Okay.”

“Okay,” David grins. “I’ll come back later then.”

Matteo gives him a hint of a smile, enough for David to want to see it forever, but Matteo’s father is still hovering by the door waiting for him. As quickly as his smile had appeared, Matteo goes inside, leaving David alone.

David looks down at his pasta and takes a bite just so that he stops smiling. He doesn’t even know why he’s smiling. Matteo had been smiling so often that it’s hard not to follow suite. As he eats, he pulls out one of his notebooks, and starts jotting down ideas. When he lets his pen drawl, it is already drawn to the shape of Matteo’s lips twisting upward as he grins.


	2. those summer nights

Like planned, David is busy. He has to finalize shooting locations and permissions, and go through everyone’s schedules for available hours, and he still has classes, and all of that isn’t even for his documentary project. Part of him wishes he was the type of person who could just wing all of it, but he’s had his narrative plan prepared for weeks and he’s passionate about it and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t tell it in the best way possible. 

But as soon as his documentary idea is formed, he adds those plans on top of his others. He doesn’t want to just show up with a camera and ask Matteo to tell him about the restaurant like a lot of other students are doing with local artisans. He wants to cox a story out of Matteo and make a film the encompasses all that David can already see in him.

David is busy, but he likes the motion of it. He has never been the type to sit still. When he makes a decision, he runs, and he doesn’t know the last time he stopped running. Get through high school, get into a film school, excel in his classes, take all the opportunities he can to get his foot in the door, create a portfolio, graduate, become a director, make films. There is no break in his plan. He doesn’t plan on taking that break now.

When David can’t handle anymore producing for his narrative without being overwhelmed, he packs his way to Pasta della Florenzi with his notebook of ideas and a bucket load of determination. He doesn’t want to make documentaries with his life. It’s just to pass this summer abroad course for his degree. But it’s going to be the best film he can make, and more importantly, he’s not going to waste an opportunity to stare at Matteo’s face for as long as possible.

The second that Matteo sees him coming, he yells something into the kitchen, tosses his apron onto the counter, and approaches David before he can even get to the outdoor seating area. Matteo doesn’t stop once reaching him, purposefully crashing his shoulder into David’s as he continues walking, and then turns backwards as David stares at him, asking, “Are you coming?”

“You’re just going to abandon work?” David asks, baffled.

“I’m on break,” Matteo shrugs. His hands tuck casually into his pockets like he knows David will follow, and sure enough, David runs after him to catch up.

“And there’s someone else there to take your spot?” David asks.

“My dad will call someone.” Matteo has a carelessness that David can’t even comprehend. It's the exact opposite of the structure that David focuses his life around. “What’s he’s going to do, fire me?”

“Not show you the family recipes, for one,” David points out.

Matteo’s face darkens, more than he had let it when he had first introduced that as a joke, and kicks at the ground. “No, he’s not going to let me anyway.”

“Why?” David asks.

Matteo pauses to focus all his attention on David and it makes his heart squeeze tightly. Even though he had been looking forward to this, he had forgotten how pretty Matteo is. His hair is fluttery and his eyes are so very blue and he’s engulfed in the t-shirt he wears and baggy shorts that should not have been allowed in a professional place of work. He looks like the type of person to have secrets; like he wants to say something but doesn’t know how. David wants to know those secrets. It seems like their gaze goes on far too long to be normal, and he needs to look away before he finds himself drowning, but somehow David had overestimated how often he’d be able to look away.

Matteo bites the inside of his lip thoughtfully, somehow looking at David like something… he doesn’t even know. Someone soft too? Someone that could understand. Someone Matteo wants to share his entire soul with and it’s suddenly too much. 

David loses air in the ocean that is Matteo’s eyes and yanks his gaze towards the street.

He is wondering if Matteo is still looking at him, or if he’s ruined his chance at knowing Matteo’s secrets, when Matteo speaks, “You never told me your name.” 

It’s strange, because it feels like David has known Matteo forever. Or like he could.

“David,” David answers.

“David,” Matteo repeats, and nods like that makes sense. “David who makes films.”

“Matteo who makes pasta,” David repeats back at him.

Matteo laughs, freely, and David is starting to think that his smiles aren’t so easily shared after all. When he laughs, it contrasts from a sadness that blends so seamlessly into his expression. He is not what David had expected even minutes into getting to know him outside of being a waiter at a restaurant. It shouldn’t make David like him more. It makes him giddy to know that Matteo can laugh with him even if they are still strangers. His insides are fluttery like butterflies.

David comes to the crashing realization that spending time with Matteo means that something might _actually_ happen, and he's scared and exhilarated, like the drop on a roller coaster and waiting to see if it'll pull up in time before they hit the ground. It's not leaning into flirt with Matteo at a restaurant table now, it's committing to a project with him and spending hours at a time together and wanting to get to know Matteo without Matteo getting to know him.

Matteo literally crashes into him again to make him turn, kicking at his heels, down a small alleyway where the old buildings lean together and laundry hangs out a window. His arm brushes David’s and he can still feel it when Matteo guides them. David has no idea where they are going. He explored the town his first day but there are ins and outs that Matteo walks through seamlessly. David wonders how he spends his summers when he isn’t working at the restaurant.

They weave between buildings, into short streets, and Matteo even waves hello to a woman watering her flowers out her window. She smiles like she knows him. David wouldn’t be surprised if everyone does, as popular as Matteo’s family’s restaurant seems to be.

It’s only when Matteo starts ducking through a window through an old stone wall that David actually starts questioning where they are going. Entry via windows tends not to be legal. Matteo doesn’t even bother explaining. He just stumbles to his feet on the other side and waits. David follows, slipping smoothly through the frame and to the floor. 

Matteo frowns when David doesn’t stumble too. “How come you’re better at that than I am?”

“You’re not the only one that climbs through windows, Matteo,” David says vaguely. 

“Let me guess,” Matteo says. He turns around to keep walking, facing away from David this time, and David misses being able to read his expression. “In high school, you kept sneaking out of windows to kiss girls at parties.”

He tosses a smirk over his shoulder, like it’s a joke, but it wobbles like he’s worried for the answer, and David knows for certain then that Matteo definitely like him in the same way. In a I-want-to-know-this-boy-forever way. It hurts, somehow, knowing that. Because David is so  _ so  _ fucked if he gives this boy a chance. Figuratively. As in it could all go to shit real fast. There is a slim chance of a literal interpretation, but David tries not to think of that because that’s also a slippery slope if he’s ever seen one.

Matteo doesn’t seem to hide much. David genuinely can’t tell if he’s trying to. But he knows if he says the word, Matteo would probably smile or blush or, god forbid, kiss him, and David  _ really  _ wants that. 

He thinks of climbing out the window to escape his parents’ house every night for years just to get away from a world where he felt like he couldn’t be himself. Where he was told explicitly not to be himself, and that he’d get over it, and why couldn’t he just be gay instead of changing his gender entirely? He would spend nights in abandoned buildings like this one just so that he didn’t have to go back. Then Laura told him that he didn’t have to run by himself and he never went back.

Climbing out the window wasn’t to kiss girls.

“It’s the quickest way to escape a crime scene,” he deadpans, instead of saying something like,  _ I kiss boys too _ , or,  _ I’d like to kiss you _ .

He’s too introspective for this shit.

Matteo snorts, and then says casually, “I once snuck out a window in high school to  _ avoid  _ kissing girls at a party.”

“Girls as in multiple girls who wanted to kiss you?” David teases. 

“Ja,” Matteo smirks, and as much as David doesn’t find that hard to believe, he’s pretty sure Matteo is kidding. 

“How’d that work out?” he asks, probably as casually as Matteo had managed it. 

“I had a panic attack and came out to my friends as gay,” Matteo deadpans.

He pauses before he says it and David understands. When David creates films, he tends to write them about strength and blackholes of struggle, and he thinks he hasn’t met one member of the LGBT+ community who hasn’t struggled somewhat in getting where they are. 

David likes to make films where the bravest thing someone can do is be who they are.

He is, admittedly, a hypocrite. But he’s more himself now than in high school and he gets to be more himself every year. He is still afraid of rejection, but he’s working on it. A lot of people hurt him. His parents. All the kids in high school. That asshole who had posted a video that outed him right before graduation at his new school. His gym teacher. It had all felt like a deep hole, but it’s not as deep anymore. He has Amira, and the rest of the Mahmood’s, and Laura. He was able to apply for university as David Schreibner without any other name, and his professors respect him, and more than that, the stories he creates. He’s joined a couple clubs, and goes out for coffee with classmates, and no longer lives in a cave.

And now he’s staying a couple months in Italy learning to do what he loves. It’s not a bad life to be living at all. In fact, it’s a pretty good one.

_ Share yourself _ , his therapist had told him once.  _ Just one thing at a time. Progress takes time. _

So David does. Just a little. 

“I didn’t go to any parties in high school. Or kiss anyone. Girls or boys.”

David sees Matteo smile. Just a little.

“So where are we?” David asks, because he’s a master deflector.

Matteo shrugs, and continues walking down the dark stone hallway, tossing David a shit eating grin along with the genius answer of, “An old building.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” David snorts. “What kind of building?”

Again, Matteo shrugs. “A really, really old one. Like, a fortress or something, I don’t know. Everything in Italy is so old.”

“Enlightening,” David deadpans.

“Ass,” Matteo shoots back at him, but he’s  _ still _ grinning and it’s a bit overwhelming.

“So, where are we going?” David finally asks out loud, deflecting again because, again - master deflector.

Matteo smirks and slips through a doorway that David hadn’t even noticed because he was too busy trying not to notice how light through some cracks on the ceiling made Matteo’s hair look gold. David follows because where else would he go? 

It’s a room brighter than the hallway, with a great domed ceiling, and everything shines from the light of the windows near the top of the walls that are curved like those of ancient cathedrals and vampire castles. Within the old stone walls and empty rooms, David feels like if he speaks, it would echo a thousand times and never be lost. 

David wonders if Matteo knows that all someone has to do to win David’s heart is show him a really cool old building. David knows far too many back in Berlin. He’d say apocalyptic abandoned buildings tend to represent his soul, but that would dramatic and isolating speech that his therapist tends to discourage. But they do speak to him somehow, or resonate, after so long of calling some home. In the short hallway that he and Matteo had walked, there had to be more rooms in this building, all full of history that people left behind.

Matteo sits near a hole in the wall that might have once been a fireplace and David joins him.

Although he doesn’t want to, he is the first to break the silence, and true to his theory, his words echo. “Why’s it empty?”

Matteo shrugs. He is doing a lot of shrugging. David doesn’t know if it is because Matteo doesn’t care, doesn’t know, or doesn’t like directly answering questions that are asked. “They took everything to wherever they put old shit, and then made plans to restore it into some town hall or something that fell through.”

“And then they forgot about it,” David concludes.

“And then I found it,” Matteo corrects, smirking at him.

“Ah,” David teases back. “A chef and an archeologist.”

“Not a chef,” Matteo counters, and looks away.

David doesn’t really have anything to say to that. He wants to ask why, but Matteo seems too tense suddenly to push it. David is reminded of his notebook in his bag on the documentary he had planned on doing on Matteo and has no clue how to get him to open up for him, much less for a camera. Maybe there will have to be things that are just for Matteo and not for everyone else to see.

He sets his bag down by his feet, digs out one of his stress balls, and stands up again. “Come on, let’s play a game.”

Matteo looks up in surprise. “Don’t we have to do something for your documentary?”

“Nah,” David answers. Number one rule of documentary filmmaking: make your subject trust you. But this isn’t because of his documentary. He just wants Matteo to smile again, because as soon as he stopped, David missed it. It’s unreasonable for Matteo to be happy all the time but somehow David wants him to be.

Just as David wanted, Matteo grins. “What game?”

“I don’t know,” David shrugs. He tosses the stress ball in the air and catches it, tilting his head with a cocky confidence that he wishes he could project into every aspect of his life, and says, “We make up rules as we go. But just so you know, I was in advanced gym in high school.”

“Oooh,” Matteo says mockingly, and not even pretending to be appropriately frightened, because despite how soft and golden he looks in the pretty light of an ancient Italian fortress-building-thing, he’s can a little shit sometimes too. “Big man. I’m so scared.”

“You should be,” David smirks.

“You start off with negative ten points then,” Matteo smirks back, wiping his hands on his shorts like that’ll somehow prepare him for their game as he stands. His eyes are sparkling. “It’s a rule for the disadvantaged.”

“Hey!” David says, offended, because rude. But also, he’s somewhat impressed.

“Make up rules as we go,” Matteo repeats smugly, before launching himself at David to grab the ball and chuck it at him. Before David can do much, he’s already been hit and Matteo is screaming as he runs away with the ball again, “One hundred points! You’re losing, Mr. Advanced Gym!”

“Fuck you!” David yells back at him, and then runs after him. He has a reputation to maintain.

* * *

David comes back to the apartment the school rented out for some of the university students much later than planned. It’s near midnight and cloudy outside, making every step on the cobblestone a shot in the dark, but at least Matteo had walked him to the door, insisting on finding out what part of the city had been infiltrated by Germans. As if Matteo wasn’t German.

There is a moment, outside the heavy wooden door, that Matteo and David had just looked at each other with the air around them full of  _ something _ . Maybe it was the need to do something other than stare, or it had something to do with the way that they had stepped too close to each other over and over again during their game. David had seen Matteo’s eyes only inches from his own, blue and laughing, and wanted to see it again.

But he’s standing outside an apartment that he doesn’t live in, in a place that he’ll only be for a month, with a boy that he doesn’t know outside of his smile and the sad turn of his lips when he doesn’t want to talk about something anymore.

David heads inside.

Essam is waiting for him in their shared room, sitting in a chair with his fingers pressed together at the tips like a Bond villain, and raises a blonde-dyed eyebrow. “Do you know what time it is, young man?”

“You’re younger than me,” David answers, pushing his way to his drawer to unpack his pajamas before moving to change out of his binder in the bathroom. 

“That’s not the point!” Essam exclaims, immediately ruining whatever strict vibe he’d been going for, and David shuts the door on him.

When he comes back, Essam has tried again, same position and the same raised eyebrow. “I was gazing out the window a couple minutes ago, and do you know what perchance I saw?”

“Was it perchance, a boy?” David deadpans, at the same time that Essam says, “A boy!”

Essam glares at him for ruining his vibe again, but quickly recovers. “And who, perchance, was he?”

“Matteo,” David answers. He sits down on his bed and takes his notebook out of his bag to update his pre-production schedule that he had completely thrown off by spending the whole day lying around a really, really old Italian building-fortress-church-thing.

“Matteo,” Essam repeats, smacking his lips like he’s tasting the word. “He’s not part of our program.”

Essam would know. Essam actually talks to the people in their program.

“He works at a restaurant near the piazza,” David answers, not taking his eyes off his page.

“I didn’t know you knew Italian,” Essam says mock casually.

David sighs and looks up at him. “He’s from Germany.”

Essam lights up like this is the most exciting thing in the world, because he’s a very excitable person, and it’s no wonder that he’s drives Amira mad. But David likes excitable people because it means that they are passionate people and he thinks that’s something everyone should be. He likes excitable people at all hours except when it’s midnight and he wants to go to bed soon.

“You met another German and you didn’t tell me?”

David glances at his hands, “He’s just waiter.”

“A waiter that you walked home with,” Essam counters.

“Essam,” David drawls, raising his eyebrow as cryptically as Essam had done when he got back, and finally obliges him with a joke. “I didn’t know we were mutually exclusive.”

“David,” Essam says back at him, dramatically pressing his hand to his heart. “You know I love you, but I’m a ladies man.”

“Hmph,” David says, and then grabs a pen and starts writing in his notebook again. “I’ll tell you when I find a German woman for you then.”

“Yes,” Essam agrees, before taking it back quickly with a, “No! I’m in another country, I might as well find Italian women. Very beautiful. Break some hearts, and then go back home.”

David sometimes has a lot to say about Essam’s views on women and his endless quest in pursuing them. There’s a lot to get into. But David also knows that all Essam wants to do is fit in, and he knows what it’s like to want that so badly. So Essam is a little childish, yes, but if basing his life off of Bond films and Bond women gives him confidence, David has given up trying to stop him. It’s only sometimes that he and Amira have to stop him from doing something completely insane (i.e. the Kiki Incident).

He also gets it. Women can be really  _ really  _ pretty. Men can also be really  _ really  _ gorgeous. Sometimes he sees a person and he thinks,  _ beautiful _ . Like Matteo.

So he offers the suggestion, “I’ll be your wingman,” and flips to another page in his notebook.

Essam loudly scoots his chair forward across the floor and rests his arms on his legs to lean forward and watch David doodle. David only hopes that the scraping sound against the floor and the light from their room hasn’t woken up nearby students.

He draws the high vampire windows of the abandoned building Matteo had showed him and pretends Essam isn’t there.

“Do you like Matteo?” Essam asks, soft enough that David is reminded of how much he likes his friend. He’s genuinely kind. Sometimes.

“Yeah,” David says.

“Like  _ like _ Matteo?” Essam asks, like they’re in kindergarten.

“Yeah,” David repeats, but softer.

“You should do something about it,” Essam suggests.

David snaps closed his notebook and Essam starts back in his chair. “I can’t.”

“Is it because-” Essam starts, and David becomes all too aware of the differences of both of them in the room. For one, he cannot sleep with his shirt off like Essam will do in a couple of minutes because he’s not alone or wearing his binder, and he can’t do much with his shirt off in general because that means people know he wears a binder to begin with. No one on the program knows he's trans except Essam in the first place. It's why David had been pulled aside by his teacher before the start of the trip and got to choose who he roomed with, and it was a miracle he even considered himself to be this comfortable with Essam seeing so much of this part of himself.

Essam doesn’t finish his sentence but they both know what he’s talking about.

“Yeah,” David repeats.

“David,” Essam says, very seriously. “You’re overthinking. What’s wrong with seeing what happens? Just hang out. Get some action. Obviously, not _too_ much action but there are other things you can do. You don’t even have to tell him, and if he doesn’t like you, BOOM - you're going home anyway.”

Essam leans back on his chair, grinning, and crosses his arms like he just solved all the world's problems. The number one rule of thumb when dealing with Essam Mahmood is to take everything he says with a grain of salt. He’s usually making shit up as he goes along. But this… is a completely valid point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Essam and David are bffs in this fic and you can't stop me! Just a disclaimer for the rest of this fic: David and Essam have lots of cultural identities and perspectives I don't have, so if something seems off, let me know and I'll work to fix that!
> 
> Sorry to anyone who asked when this was continuing: it turns out I have a lot more school stuff I have to balance than previously thought! I added a chapter count when I mapped out my plan, but you'll notice it's gone, because apparently I SUCK at long chapters. I don't have a long haul motivation. So, this is a part of the long first chapter I wrote out (there were supposed to only be three more chapters) and hopefully that will keep me ahead and actually updating!
> 
> In other, completely unrelated news, if any of you have any cool story ideas involving 40's movie detectives or random things in the middle of the desert, hmu. I'm stuck on a school writing assignment and am now crowd-sourcing in desperation.


	3. summer sun, somethings begun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> idk man it's just an over excessive use of italics, Italian, and insecurities, but it also has hands so who's the real winner here

David doesn’t immediately go back to the restaurant. He wants to. But he doesn’t.

He says it’s because he has class, and because he’s finalizing pre-production for his films, but even Essam doesn’t believe him. He’s _ processing _ things, okay? Because usually when someone shows interest in him, he’ll tuck it away and then bring it up in therapy, where his therapist will suggest that he’s holding back from love because he doesn’t believe people can accept him when the people who raised him didn’t. And then she’ll tell him that not everyone is his parents. And then she’ll tell a joke, and David will admit that it could work out, and then he won’t do anything anyway because fear isn’t as easy to get over than just talking about it.

But his therapist isn’t here right now because it’s _ summer _ and he’s in _ Italy _, so he gives her speech to himself, and then continues to not do anything about it.

Instead, he sits outside in the main city piazza and rips up newspapers with Essam so that they can create a bunch of paper mache props. It’s a process that more or less involves being coated with glue and sweat, and regretting that they hadn’t decided to do this earlier because everything except their backs dry too quickly. It is quite possibly the grossest David has ever felt but it is also super fun. It reminds David of how much he likes film, the process of it all, and how creative it allows him to be while still being utterly ridiculous.

They also decided to do this, unfortunately, around the time that hundreds of people are let out of Mass and spill into the piazza from the local cathedral.

David is holding a paper mache sword out of the way from a group of women walking past, rambling in fluent Italian, when he sees the worst possible person he could ever see when covered with glue and sweat and holding a paper mache sword. 

It’s not even fair. David looks like a giant mess while Matteo-

Fuck.

He quickly looks away and focuses uselessly on making sure some already dry paper is sticking where it is supposed to be. Obliviously, Essam continues deciding what he could use the props for in his next youtube video. He’s talking about potentially using the rest of the ripped up paper to create a giant snake to scare his family when he suddenly stops and looks up.

David follows his gaze.

His eyes track from scuffled white tennis shoes, to well fitted navy slacks, and up a simple button-up and suspenders to Matteo’s face looking down at both of them. His hair flops out of a newsboy cap that David is fairly certain isn’t allowed in churches, or at least during prayer, that seems haphazardously shoved on his head. When David makes eye contact, Matteo shifts awkwardly on his feet and shoves his hands in his pockets, with a short, “Na?” in greeting.

“Na,” David sputters out.

This whole _ look _ , if one could call it that, should not be attractive. Especially when he’s wearing it with _ suspenders _. David can’t get over the suspenders. Somehow, Matteo can dress like an old man and get away with it. It’s- David can’t- aksl gsdgs. It should be impossible. Or illegal. It’s completely rude for Matteo to show up like this, like some sort of model in whatever countryside Italian edition, while David is still trying to do nothing about his therapist’s advice on giving people chances.

David is also pretty sure that he has glue in his hair.

Essam, however, has no such fears. He greets Matteo with a grin that promises David hell, but that quickly shifts into a frown. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“Uh,” Matteo says, shifting uncomfortably again on his sneakers as he looks between the two of them, and also the series of paper mache weapons. “I work at Pasta Della Florenzi?”

Essam stares at him a moment more before shaking himself out of his confused daze. “I don’t know Italian,” he says, even though Matteo had only said the name of a restaurant. “But yeah! That’s probably it.”

David is still staring. It’s worse than before when he had first seen Matteo. Because Matteo is dressed up now, and David can actually see the shape of his body under the baggy clothes and apron that he usually wears, and David can remember what Matteo’s laugh sounds like and how easily he had reached for him, trying to grab the stress ball, before clinging to him like a koala. And there’s also the rather intrusive thought of, _ I should have kissed him last night _, which is rather inconvenient when he’s trying to stop himself from doing the same right now.

Matteo is looking back at him now, expectantly, but David doesn’t know what he expects.

“I’m Essam,” Essam interrupts smugly. “David’s partner.”

It should be obvious what kind of partner Essam means when they are surrounded by the wet, messy evidence of the very fine and precise art of prop making. But because David is staring, he has the unfortunate experience of watching in horror as Matteo blinks and lets his expression completely drop. His hair falls over his eyes as he looks down at his feet as though they are suddenly the most interesting thing in the world, and David feels like he just kicked a puppy.

“Oh,” Matteo says simply. 

David’s words cannot slip out fast enough, “He’s helping me with my films!”

Matteo looks up between he and Essam, and David can see his brow furrowing, and it’s only then that the rest of Essam’s brain catches up to him with an unnecessarily loud, “Oh! Yeah! I’m just his film partner. He’s completely single.”

To emphasize, Essam reaches his arm around David’s shoulders and punches his other arm in a very brotherly manner, grinning up at Matteo. It’s blunt, and embarrassing, but it gets the point across.

Not that David thinks that the information that he is single is completely necessary when he _ isn’t trying to change that status _. At least, he’s not really, kinda, he's not really sure at this very moment.

He’s in too deep and he barely knows the guy. David hates it.

“Oh,” Matteo says again, and then looks towards David. David shrugs innocently and pretends his face isn’t burning hot.

“We actually, um-” David clears his throat and shrugs off Essam’s arm, looking around at the chaos of their project. He tries not to feel completely out of his depth compared to Matteo in his _ suspenders _ (god, that kid _ actually _ wears suspenders, what the fuck) or look directly at him in case somehow the sight will make him implode. “-just finished making some props for a scene I’m doing.”

Matteo sits down across from them, picking up a small paper mache dagger as if the last awkward couple seconds hadn’t happened, but David can still feel his gaze on him. 

“What’s this one for?” Matteo asks, playfully stabbing at the air to test it. 

“It’s hard to explain,” David informs his shoe.

“Give it a try,” Matteo encourages.

David looks up at his pleading gaze and gives in. The problem is, he really can’t think of a way to explain the scene without explaining his film, and it’s difficult to describe. He normally can’t, even when he _ isn’t _ looking at the most beautiful person in the world.

“Uh…”

“He’s doing a black and white murder mystery,” Essam cuts in. “The detective thinks the dagger is the murder weapon, but it turns out to be something completely different, and it’s really cool!”

“It’s more complicated than that,” David mutters.

“It’s more complicated than that,” Essam agrees. 

“That sounds awesome,” Matteo says, but his voice sounds off when he sets the dagger back down. 

Essam, for someone that had just previously been extremely dense, begins to gather up at the paper mache weapons and props with a cheerful, “I’m just going to bring these back to the apartment now that they’re finished! David, Matteo, you can take care of the wet newspaper and glue.”

David can tell that this is not only to force David and Matteo together, but it’s also because Essam doesn’t want to deal with everything they’ve set out. But Matteo shrugs, like he either doesn’t mind or care that he has been designated to clean up duty, and looks at David again as he agrees, even though it hadn’t been a request, “Yeah. Okay.”

David glares at Essam. Essam smiles smugly, already bailing the situation as soon as possible. “_Ciao_. See you later!”

And then it’s just David and Matteo, sitting among piles of glue and paper. Matteo looks around and carefully suggests, “You take the paper, I’ll grab the glue?”

* * *

They ended up using the rest of the glue and scraps of newspaper to create a giant ball of pure solid density that David will end up dropping on Essam’s head for abandoning him like this. That is, that was the plan until Matteo painted a glue face on it and named it Carl, insisting on taking it home.

And then he invites David to go get gelato, which… sounds suspiciously like a date.

David agrees, because he’s an idiot, and then agrees to follow Matteo to his dad’s house so that Matteo can change out of his church clothes and drop off Carl the Paper Mache Nightmare Ball. David wants to see Matteo continue to wear his suit but doesn’t know how to say that without being weird or crossing lines he’s not sure he wants to deal with. It’s probably best for his sanity that he doesn’t. He’s already alternated between staring and not being able to look directly at Matteo for fear of doing something rash and stupid too many times.

He’s also tempted to ask if they can stop by the student apartment so that David can change too, because he’s sweaty and his fingers are dry with glue, but changing _ means _ something. Like David wants to look his best for their gelato date, but it’s not a date, so he shouldn’t have to change. He’s fine looking like a complete disaster. It’s just Matteo. Some random Italian-German dude who he doesn’t need to impress at all.

(He is not fine at all, but that’s neither here nor there).

So Matteo drops off Carl the Paper Mache Nightmare Ball, assuring David his dad will be occupied at the church for a while and won’t be there, and changes in a nearby bedroom while David tries not to be awkward in the middle of their living room.

David wants to ask Matteo a lot of things. Like why there are no family pictures hanging on the walls, and why his home doesn’t look like a home, and why Matteo goes to Mass on Sundays and if it’s because he believes in the practice, and if he does, does he believe he’s going to hell because he’s gay, but that’s all a bit much to ask someone. Especially on their first not-date. Or second, if they count the abandoned building the other day.

The Florenzi living room is grey, despite the bright Italian colors of the city, and it makes David itch. He doesn’t know how Matteo stands it. 

When Matteo leaves his room, dressed in his usual baggy shorts and a t-shirt, he smiles at David and David doesn’t think Matteo belongs here at all. Not in this house. David thinks houses can tell a lot about a person, but this place doesn’t describe Matteo, it explains a lot more about the world he lives in outside the fairylights of his Pasta della Florenzi and abandoned buildings.

If Matteo shuffles him outside a lot quicker than necessary, he thinks it’s because Matteo knows that it explains a lot too and he doesn’t like what it’s saying.

They pause on the doorstep so that Matteo can lock the house behind them. They are in the shade but David can immediately feel the pressing heat of the day. He still feels gross and sweaty.

The student apartment is just a little out of the way, would it really be too much to ask to stop by for a second? Then again, Essam is there, and Essam tends to meddle.

Before David can decide whether he wants to ask, Matteo looks up from jamming a key rather harshly into the lock and yanking it out and suddenly they’re too close. Matteo's face is inches from his own. David feels his cheeks turn ruddy pink, and Matteo looks a little flushed as well.

_ It’s the heat _, David tells himself. (It’s not the heat).

Matteo’s hand reaches up, and David doesn’t know what he’s doing, is _ afraid _ of what he’s doing, but he freezes anyway, because he can’t bring himself to step away even though they’re crowded on a doorstep. Matteo’s fingers brush through the top of David’s hair, frizzy and curly because of this goddamn weather, and David can’t look away from Matteo, watching what he is doing in concentration instead of meeting David’s baffled (and wanting) gaze. David doesn’t let _ anyone _ touch his hair but Matteo is purposeful about it and steps away after a second of tension, holding up a large dried white flake.

“Glue,” Matteo explains, bright red.

David cannot believe that it’s been there this whole entire time. But that’s just his luck. He knew somehow he had glue in his hair. He’s not sure what else he expected Matteo to be doing, but he’s pretty sure he looks ridiculous.

“Thanks,” David says dumbly. 

“Ehm.” Matteo clears his throat, and turns out towards the street, dropping the dried glue carelessly on the ground, and then adds, “Gelato?”

They walk in silence to the gelateria. David is tempted to brush his hand by Matteo’s but that seems a little desperate and also he’s still sticking with trying to ignore his therapist’s advice of trusting people even though that’s becoming increasingly hard. He’s also trying to forget Essam asking what was wrong with seeing what happens because David can come up with a bunch of terrible answers to that. Matteo is increasingly maintaining his image of literally the purest ray of sometimes-sad-sunshine that David has ever met but still.

He’s twenty years old and acting like a teenager with a crush. It’s never been this bad. And after only meeting up _ three _times? He’d been helpless at the first one, and it wasn’t getting any better. David was never one to believe in love at first sight, or anything this quickly, and so he’s a little skeptical and terrified out of his mind.

There’s a shriek as soon as they enter a nearby gelateria that snaps David out from spiraling too quickly, and then a loud, “Matteo Florenzi! _ Ciao ragazzo _!”

“Buongiorno, Valentia,” Matteo greets, with that smile that can make anyone melt.

The gelateria is quaint and small, with only a large open door from the streets and room for people to stand as they order or look over the glass freezer in front of them. The walls are painted pink and green. But David doesn’t have time to take it all in before his attention is drawn to the woman behind the counter, grinning with wrinkled cheeks, and bustling out closer to envelop Matteo in a large hug. 

“_ è passato così tanto tempo!*" _ she says, too quickly to translate before pulling away to kiss both of Matteo’s cheeks. She turns towards David with a soft smile, and asks in Italian. _ “ _ Who is this? _ ” _

David can actually answer that. He should, actually, if not for the fact he’s embarrassed that he messed up so badly the first time he tried speaking to Matteo and doesn’t want to suddenly seem fluent. He looks at Matteo anxiously and wonders if he should just pull out all the stops now and deal with having to tell Matteo how flustered he had made him later.

“He’s a German friend,” Matteo explains for him, in Italian so that David doesn’t have to and also because he thinks David has no idea what she is asking. “He’s making a film here.”

“Ah,” the woman, Valentia, nods wisely, looking at David up and down again before turning and whispering conspiratorially to Matteo, “_ è carino _.”

David knows that one too. She is saying he is cute. She says it like she approves, and wants to make sure Matteo knows it. His cheeks turn bright red again, without ever having much of a break.

“Valentia,” Matteo chides, also bright red.

“_ Si, si, si _ ,” Valentia waves away, moving to grab Matteo’s cheeks like an old Italian grandmother that David can only imagine is a thing around here. Her next words come softly, and David feels like he shouldn’t be listening, much less trying to translate. He studiously studies the gelatos in the case and wonders if he should order _ nocciola _ . “ _è solo che sei così solo. __e magro. Mi preoccupo per te.” _

“_ Sto bene _,” Matteo says, swatting her away and rolling his eyes.

“Hmm,_ ma sei felice?** _” The woman asks, and only then does she let go of Matteo, giving him a huff full of affection and a pat on the cheek. She looks at David again as she rounds back around the counter, takes one look at his face, and laughs, speaking at Matteo again. “Free gelato for you and your German friend.”

“Sweet,” Matteo grins, before telling David, “Free gelato!”

David pretends like he hadn’t understood that part and smiles. It’s hard not to smile when Matteo looks so pleased. He turns to tell Valentia what flavors he’d like but she’s already piling a few onto a cone and passing it over to Matteo before going to make the same one for David. 

Stracciatella and pistacchio. Matteo takes them both and hands David his with a knowing grin. It feels like David has been let in on something, whether that’s just the best mix of gelato flavors or sharing delight over someone has kind and friendly as Valentia.

“_ Grazie _,” David offers her as he takes his cone from Matteo, because he’s polite and she’s just given him free ice cream. Everyone knows the Italian word for thank you. Or at least, even Essam does, so his secret of being a complete disaster is probably safe enough for him to express gratitude.

Matteo rolls his eyes and drags him out of the gelateria.

“_ Arrivederci _!” Valentia calls out after them. “Don’t wait so long to come by again!”

“_ Ciao!” _Matteo shouts.

Without speaking, they both turn to walk down the street again, in no direction in particular. David doesn’t know where they are going, and he doesn’t think that Matteo does either. It only matters that they are together.

“I hope you’re not allergic to nuts,” Matteo says, looking down at their gelato like he just remembered that possibility.

“I’m not,” David assures him.

“But you’re allergic to seafood?” Matteo asks, and David can see the teasing twist of his lips upward.

“I’m not-” David sputters indignantly. “I’m not allergic to seafood.”

“Mhmm,” Matteo hums like he doesn’t believe him.

“I’m not!” David insists. “My sister and I had oysters in Spain a couple years ago and ended up getting really sick, so I just don’t like ordering seafood!”

“You don’t trust,” Matteo says slowly, his hand to his heart. “The quality at Pasta Della Florenzi?”

“I, uh.” David really doesn’t know what to say to that. Because no, he really hadn’t. But now that he knows it’s Matteo’s _ family’s _ restaurant, it seems a little personal to tell him that, even when he knows that Matteo is messing with him. He scoffs and looks down the street that they’re walking, licking some of his gelato instead of digging himself a hole. 

“Eat your ice cream,” he mutters.

Matteo cackles. That bastard.

The atmosphere is filled with the sound of music that drifts between the buildings and cobble streets. It doesn’t sound like something David has heard on the radio, but like someone is playing from a nearby window. It is as alive and bright as the sun that is quickly melting their gelatos. David has to lick around the side to make sure it doesn’t drip onto his fingers.

Matteo attacks his gelato with equal fervor as they walk, almost as if they are both trying to ignore the awkward silence between them.

“Valentia seems nice,” David says finally.

“Yeah, she is,” Matteo agrees. He turns to David and shrugs, “I used to get gelato there every day before my mom had us move to Berlin for school. Now I go every summer.”

David pointedly ignores the fact that Matteo is from Berlin. He is already struggling with what to do this summer. Matteo living in the same city? David can’t deal with that right now.

So he plasters on an easy retort and asks, “Do you always get free gelato?”

“Why do you think I go?” Matteo smirks.

David shrugs, “Could be a front for the mafia that you’re a part of.”

Matteo laughs and it lights up his entire expression in ways that his smile doesn’t even begin to touch. It's only been a couple days but David had missed his laugh. It is relaxed and free and everything David can't bring himself to be. “Not every Italian is part of the mafia, _ David _.”

He puts a lot of emphasis on David’s name. He also kicks at David’s feet as they continue walking, and it’s such a childish way of flirting that David laughs too.

“They’re not?” David asks innocently. “You seem like you could be.”

“David,” Matteo repeats, already careening towards David with more, “_ David, David, David” _’s until he is whispering in his ear, “I hide my neighbors dead body in that abandoned building.”

David shoves him off, heart beating fast, and tries to seem like his flush is just from the sun that is still in the middle of the sky with no intent to retreat. “I knew it. Valentia is the godfather, isn’t she?”

Matteo shrugs and licks up more of his ice cream as it drips over his cone. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

“You know where I live,” David says casually. He tries not to think of it as the invitation that it is and also not to stare at Matteo’s mouth.

It is quiet for a minute before Matteo starts hesitantly, “So your film.”

“Which one?” David asks. “The narrative or documentary?”

“Um,” Matteo has to pause at this. He’s kicking his sneakers at the cobblestone again, like he has the habit of doing, before continuing, “Your documentary. Did you find someone else to do it or?”

“Did I-” David has to stop walking to stare at him baffled. “I asked you to do it.”

“Yeah, but,” Matteo says weakly, stopping as well. His hair is floppy and messy again without the cap, and with his baggy clothes, he seems to always look like he’s drowning. Especially when he’s frowning the way he is now, like he doesn’t ever expect much. David wants him to laugh again. This always wanting Matteo to be happy thing is getting a little problematic. “You didn’t tell me anything about it the other day and then… I saw you with props this morning, so I thought you might have switched projects or something.”

“I have two projects,” David explains, still rather dumbly.

“Well, I know that now,” Matteo grumbles. “I thought- I don’t know. You didn’t come see me.”

Which is. Oh. David feels like he should have predicted this - hurting people when he disappears like he has a tendency to do. Laura hates him for it, but also always understands and forgives him, so most of the time it has just been Laura who is affected.

“Matteo,” David says slowly. He wants to hold Matteo’s hand and tell him he’ll never do it again, but deep down he knows, it’s a possibility. He overthinks and he runs away, and that’s who David is. But he still offers a, “I meant it when I asked, and I haven’t changed my mind.”

It’s not an explanation for why he hasn’t come back to the restaurant but Matteo nods and says, “Okay.”

They keep walking. Matteo finishes his gelato first in giant bites that make David think that he’s not trying to impress him at all, and David finishes his gelato later because he’s actually got tact, and then their hands are empty and hang awkwardly by their sides. David hand feels drawn to Matteo’s like a magnet. Their fingers brush on multiple occasions but David can’t bring himself to have the courage to fully grasp and hold on. 

Matteo, god bless his soul, does. 

He links his pinkie through David’s and then the rest of their fingers slot together easily. David focuses much too hard on walking, instead of Matteo’s palm touching his, because the moment he thinks about it, he’s going to spiral down and he doesn’t want that. He just wants to be. He just wants to hold hands with a boy and not think about anything else except how Matteo’s hands are a little chapped, and it’s sweaty under the sun but he doesn’t want to let go.

When David looks over at Matteo, he looks annoyingly casual as he looks anywhere but David, and David can see he’s grinning. David adores that smile. For a moment he thinks, I could do this, be casual like Essam said, but then Matteo meets his eyes. It’s impossible to hide the fact that David had already been staring, so he doesn’t.

Matteo opens his mouth to say something, and _ that’s _ when David decides to freak out again. 

“So my documentary,” he interrupts. “I need you to cook.”

Matteo drops his hand. “Cook what?”

“Anything,” David says, and tries not to feel empty. “But if my documentary is going to be about you wanting to be a chef, we need shots of you cooking.”

“But I’m not going to become a chef,” Matteo’s eyebrows furrow as he looks over at him.

"But you want to be?” David asks.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Matteo remains quiet, and then abruptly asks, “What do I have to talk about on your film?”

David isn’t sure what he’d even be willing to talk about. He doesn’t want to say anything that’ll scare Matteo away, or add anything Matteo doesn’t want. God knows David has secrets too. So he says easily, “Whatever you want to say.”

Matteo pauses, contemplatively, before asking, “What if I talked about Mario Kart the whole time."

Just like that, it’s back to normal.

David rolls his eyes and lets himself laugh. “Then I guess I’m making a documentary on Mario Kart.”

Matteo grins at him, and David thinks it’s because he just gave Matteo an out. They won’t do anything that Matteo doesn’t want to do. Not that they’ll do everything Matteo wants to do. Because David still has a _ grade _ to worry about relying on Matteo and he’s putting a lot of trust in Matteo not wanting to talk about Mario Kart all the time.

Matteo’s grin shifts into something mischievous and dangerous as he offers, “My dad’s kitchen is empty after close.”

For a second, David thinks he’s offering it as a place to go and make out. And then he remembers that he literally asked for film of Matteo cooking. 

He collects himself quickly, running through his schedule in his head and when he can get a camera, and then decides on asking, “Do you think we can sneak in tomorrow?”

Matteo shrugs, large and dramatically because he doesn’t have to think about a schedule, and answers, “Why not?”

David likes that response. He’s been coming up with reasons this whole time on why he shouldn’t let himself fall for Matteo, but what if the whole time, he should have been thinking why not? It's just for a month or so. He wants to hold Matteo’s hand again.

So he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was going to publish sooner but it felt like it was missing something and turns out that was jokes about the Mafia.
> 
> Italian translations:  
* "It has been so long!"  
**  
"It's just that you're so lonely. And thin. I worry about you."  
"I'm fine."  
"But are you happy?"
> 
> In other news, I have the last part of what was originally chapter 1 finished! I am however going to be writing a bunch of Amira one-shots over the course of next week because it feels weird to be writing Davenzi when Druck isn't even writing for their s4 main. Also, Amira is one of my faves who I have a bunch of ideas for so this just gives me an excuse. Idk if anyone will take me up on it but I figured I might as well open my inbox on tumblr to prompts too if y'all want @amirathelegend !! Just keep them Amira focused and I'll see what I can do!  
If not, thanks for reading and all your kind comments that keep me motivated and positive :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David and Matteo make pasta. That's it. That's the whole chapter.

It’s dark by the time David meets Matteo outside Pasta Della Florenzi. The moon hangs above them in the sky, bright enough for everything to look silver, and it reminds David of a week ago when he had first met Matteo, except this time the lights are off and missing the fairylights that had drawn him closer to begin with. David doesn’t mind. Instead, Matteo sits on one of the outdoor tables, waiting, and he had been the best part of the night anyway.

His eyes flicker between David and his camera bag before greeting, “Na?”

“Hey,” David says. He stops in front of the table Matteo sits on but it’s hard to see his face. The unlit awning covers them both in shadow.

“You ready?” Matteo asks David, kicking at his bag. 

“Are you?” David asks with a challenging raise of his eyebrow. 

“Duh,” Matteo answers, which is rather cocky of him. David thinks he can see the edge of a smirk in the darkness. But then Matteo hops off the table and the shadow of his head nods in the direction of a small alleyway running next to the restaurant. “Come on.”

David follows without a word. They are briefly exposed in the moonlight again before escaping down the alley. No one would be able to see them if they weren’t paying attention and David can feel the rush of doing something dangerous in the swooping of his stomach. Whether it’s because he’s sure Matteo didn’t tell his dad about this or the fact that David is just one tiny shove from letting go of all reservations is up for debate.

Matteo digs a key out of the pockets of a giant hoodie that David has never seen before. There is no use for hoodies in the middle of the day when clothes feel like they’ll melt off your skin, but at night David has found that even the hottest day can be reduced to a cool breeze echoing through the streets. It balances in the temperature that finds some people wearing jackets and jeans while others wear the short clothes of the day.

David doesn’t wear a hoodie. His t-shirt is thin but he’s never been easily cold.

“So what are we making?” David asks as Matteo jimmies his way through a kitchen door on the side of the building.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Matteo retorts.

“I would like to know, actually,” David says, considering this is his film.

Matteo shoves the door open and steps inside to pitch black, leaving David to follow, and then says in a really bad Italian accent for someone that is actually Italian, “ _ Ratatouille _ !”

David imagines more than sees his dramatic hand gesture and laughs. “That checks out. Does that make you the rat?”

There’s a click and the lights turn on, illuminating a large kitchen in yellow and Matteo standing next to him with a hand on the light switch. David steps inside. Matteo grins easily, his hands sliding into his pockets. “Yep!”

“Hmm,” David hums and pretends to examine Matteo for rat-like similarities, but instead his eyes rake up and down Matteo’s body in a way that isn’t quite as teasing as he meant it to be. He can see Matteo suck in a small breath, and immediately overcompensates by panicking and turning to set his camera bag down on the counter with a much too loud, “Yeah, that checks out too.”

He looks behind him to check Matteo’s reaction, holding his breath and hoping Matteo will be kind enough to pretend David didn’t blatantly check him out, and finds Matteo a little red. They hadn’t talked about the hand holding thing the other day. David doesn’t know where that leaves them. He’s never done this before. And if he acknowledges any of it, it’s making things real and he’s still clinging to the small sliver of  _ don’t-do-this _ that is his safety net.

He looks away to pull the camera out of his bag, and it’s a second too late when Matteo laughs, “Rude."

“You said it first,” David shrugs. He collects himself, pulling the camera strap over his head and checking the lens, before turning around again with a cocky tilt of his head. “You ready?”

Matteo holds his arms out wide, gesturing around, and grins innocently, “Direct me.”

David would like to direct him to do a lot of things one of which is to stop being so… Matteo, because David doesn’t know if he’ll be able to focus. This had been a horribly bad idea. But he’s in it now and there’s no stopping, so all he can do is shoo Matteo away. “Let’s raid this joint.”

Matteo lets out a loud whoop and grabs for a giant recipe book on a shelf while David goes through his camera settings. And then David makes Matteo grab the recipe book again while he’s filming because whoever said that some documentaries shots aren’t staged are liars. Matteo pulls it off the shelf as dramatically as possible, like it’s an enchanted potion book that will explode if dropped, and while David rolls his eyes, he doesn’t make Matteo do it again. A serious Matteo doesn’t seem very Matteo.

“Is that it?” David asks lowly, leaning over Matteo as he flips through the book. “The top secret Florenzi family recipes?”

“Super top secret,” Matteo agrees. He looks over at David, his blue eyes only a couple inches away, before ducking his head down again and turning another page with pink cheeks. He doesn’t look up as he pauses on one of the pages and adds, “My mama used to make me this one all the time.”

There’s a story there but David doesn’t push. Instead he straightens and offers, “Let’s make that one then.”

Matteo smiles and agrees, “Okay.”

David films Matteo setting out a pot of water to boil on the stove. Ingredients are gathered on the kitchen table. David asks Matteo how many tomatoes they go through in a day but that’s not for the film, it’s just because there are a  _ lot _ of tomatoes in a back room full of produce, and it feels like more than David could possibly eat in a year but is really just a week’s worth.

It’s a lot different in this kitchen than in a household. David can’t tell if the garlic and onions and peppers hanging above the counter are decorations and there’s a shelf full of so many spices that it’s a little overwhelming. There are multiple stoves next to a pizza brick oven. Beyond that is a doorway, likely leading out to the actual seating area, but there’s no use going there. 

David hides how impressed he is that Matteo knows where everything is by recording random b-roll footage that might not even be used. They both do their own thing in silence; David with his camera, and Matteo grabbing whatever he needs.

David focuses the lens on the spice shelf, pretending to be busy and checking the lighting. All he can hear in the room is the sound of their own breathing and the occasional footstep.

“Got everything?” Matteo’s breath is suddenly in his ear, his arms shoving at David in a jump scare.

David jumps. Matteo cackles. 

“Asshole!” David exclaims, swinging around, but Matteo is already scampering away still cackling.

“I thought  _ I _ was the subject of your film,” Matteo pouts.

“Hmm, not anymore,” David gives him a fake pout back. Matteo’s pout grows bigger, both establishing and winning their pouting contest, and David rolls his eyes instead of facing the emotion that looking at Matteo’s face more than five seconds gives him.

He shoves Matteo toward the counter with his free hand and then moves to set up an angle across from him. If Matteo wants to be the subject, so be it. “Do something interesting more interesting than the spices then.”

Matteo looks directly at the camera and plasters on a ditzy smile that looks completely ridiculous on someone as ragged as Matteo with his baggy hoodie and blonde hair falling unprofessionally in his face. David holds back a laugh.

“Bonjourno,” Matteo greets with pep. “Welcome back to my shitty cooking show, where today we will be making pasta al a Luigi-”

“Pasta al a Luigi?” David questions.

“-and today we are joined by a nosy camera director who asks too many questions about my craft,” Matteo continues, talking over him loudly before continuing. “The first thing to cook are noodles, which are currently as fragile and thin as my soul-”

“Matteo!” David interrupts with a laugh, completely giving up the pretense of going along with the joke. He has to set down the camera because this is getting nowhere but Matteo only grins and keeps going, holding up a package of homemade noodles.

“We want to make the noodles as floppy as-”

David’s hand shoots over the counter, trying to slap over Matteo’s mouth, because he doesn’t want to know where  that analogy is going, but Matteo squirms out of the way and laughs instead. “Fine, fine, no blog.”

“Just make your pasta,” David says, rolling his eyes.

Matteo huffs but he’s still grinning so David knows he’s not too put out. Instead, he turns and dumps the noodles into the pot of boiling water on the stove behind him. He turns back to face David brushing his hands together as if saying:  _ done _ ! “There! Pasta!”

He’s such a bastard. David should not find it as amusing as he does and knows he wouldn’t put up with any of this if it were anyone else he were trying to film. He’s really only filming Matteo to be around him so he has no leg up to demand control of the situation. But heaven forbid, he’ll try anyway.

“Alright, now cut the tomatoes,” David instructs, pulling back to pick up his camera again.

“Bossy,” Matteo smirks.

He does it anyway. Matteo cuts the tomatoes screaming like a samurai and pretending to be a ninja which seems pretty on-brand for Matteo. David has literally no clue what he’s going to do with all this footage or what will even become of his film but he’s laughing and he never realized how little he used to laugh until he was around Matteo. 

It’s when Matteo starts slicing an onion that David gets the bravery to ask, “So is your dad going to kill us when he finds out we snuck in here?”

Matteo shrugs. “Nah. It’s like you said, what’s he going to do?”

David gets enough footage of Matteo’s hands moving the onion around the cutting board to chop it into pieces and lets it fall to his chest on the strap so that Matteo knows it’s not recording when he continues curiously, “But why doesn’t he let you in here?”

Matteo shrugs again and glances up just fast enough that he can look back down again before he cuts his fingers. “I’m in Berlin most the year with my ma. And there’s no use in training your lazy son to cook if they’re only here a couple months a year.”

“I don’t think you’re lazy,” David comments.

Matteo pauses in his slicing and blinks up at David in surprise. The room is starting to smell like onions and it’s stinging his eyes which is probably why both of them look like they’re about to cry. Then Matteo looks down again, muttering, “That’s not what my dad says.”

David wants to punch Matteo’s dad.

“You could leave,” David suggests softly. If there is anything that David knows, it’s about leaving, even if it’s hard. He knows about preserving his mental health and surviving, and at the moment Matteo seems to be bordering the line of surviving. He could be in Berlin with his mother and doing things that made him happy instead of staying in that grey and soulless house and spending all day working at a restaurant where he doesn’t get to do what he wants.

Matteo makes the final slice through the onion before carefully setting down the knife. It’s odd because David hasn’t seen a careful Matteo before. He certainly hadn’t been careful when aggressively chopping tomatoes like in fruit ninja only a couple minutes ago. “He pays for my rent in Berlin for the rest of the year. And my mama...”

He fades off and just to fill the silence, David offers, “You could get a job.”

Matteo opens his mouth, closes it again, and then says, “Maybe.”

“But you want to cook?” David presses.

Matteo shrugs again. “I don’t know.” He takes a deep breath and says quieter. “I don’t know what I want to do. But I want to be  _ allowed _ to do it.”

David doesn’t dig any further. He knows what it's like to want to be allowed to do something, and he wouldn’t want Matteo digging in his life either. He's pushed too much already, and whether it’s the onions or not, Matteo seems to be shutting down exponentially fast. So David shuts up and raises his camera again. “Well, what's next?”

It takes Matteo a second but he eventually holds up a jar of tomato paste with a wariness covered by a smile and says, “Sauce!”

He dumps all the ingredients into a saucepan all at once. Chopped tomatoes, raw onions, garlic, basil, the tomato sauce. All of it. Every time David has seen Laura cook, she always sautés onions first to make sure they’re brown and flimsy, but when he points this out to Matteo, he only sticks out his tongue. “How dare you criticize pasta a la Luigi?”

“I’m just saying,” David teases, trying to get Matteo to give a real smile again. “I thought you were supposed to cook them first.”

“Who's the Italian here?” Matteo asks, and there it is. The corner of his lips quirking up. “Read the recipe book, I’m doing it right.”

David moves to look at the recipe in the middle of the table and then realizes what has happened when it’s all in Italian. He looks up to see Matteo grinning smugly. He’s so happy to see that grin, his heart squeezing painfully, that he doesn’t even bother trying to rearrange his face into something pseudo-pissed. “Fuck you.”

“If you insist,” Matteo says easily.

David stumbles over literally nothing. They had done so well not acknowledging the hand holding thing, and all the touching when playing a made up game, and tense moments outside doorways, and that first joke when realizing they both spoke German, that David had been coasting on the hope that they wouldn't have to acknowledge it at all.

“Sorry,” Matteo says quickly, before David can even process things. He shoves his hands in his pockets awkwardly and doesn’t look David in the eyes. “I shouldn’t have said that. I have a joke back home with my friends, so it kind of slips out sometimes-”

David’s heart drops. He can almost hear it shatter at the realization that this was at most somehow a friend thing? He’d been panicking over nothing and Matteo probably isn’t even interested, but at the same time, it’s such a completely ridiculous idea of an excuse that he can’t help but ask, “You joke about fucking your friends?”

“Uh,” Matteo’s hand shifts up to rub the back of his neck. “Yes? My friend Abdi was really sad one day and I had just come out so I joked that- and then it became a thing, and I just- I don’t mean it! Not with them, but-”

“But?” David asks, because Matteo is all over the place and he’s just trying to keep up.

“Not that I wouldn’t-” Matteo rushes out. “With you. I like you a lot. But you freeze when I do things sometimes and then back away so I was thinking… if you don’t want me to, I’ll stop. I just want...”

He fades off right when David desperately needs to know how he’ll continue. “You want?”

Matteo licks his lips. David swears he can see his gaze linger on his mouth and David freezes. And then he realizes that he freezes. And also that Matteo is right, and he can’t believe that Matteo noticed because he thought he’d been subtle with pushing away all this time, and maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all. On the other hand, David is tired of being afraid.

Matteo’s eyes drift up to David’s and David licks his lips nervously too.

In the tense silence, the water in the noodle pot bubbles over and there’s a loud hissing splash to their left that causes Matteo to jump and David to turn bright red as he snaps out of whatever trance they’d just been in.

“Shit!” Matteo exclaims, rushing over. “The noodles!”

They finish making the pasta. It’s not weird. It’s a little weird but within a few minutes they’ve grown comfortable again and their smiles are genuine. David teases Matteo about his pasta sauce that he made. Matteo kicks at David’s feet to get him to scamper away from the oven. David gets a few more shots but he’s not really focused on that, he’s trying to figure out how to tell Matteo something along the lines of "You make me so happy and I've never really tried a relationship before, much less something that would have to end over the summer, and I'm terrified out of my mind but I really want to kiss you without having to tell you everything about myself just in case you hate me or don't understand" but in less words than that.

Matteo sets the pot of pasta in the next to them on the counter and doesn’t bother dishing it, just hands David a fork. David accepts the fork. It is quiet as they eat.

And then - “Can you even use your footage?”

David stares at Matteo, fork halfway to his mouth (it’s actually really good pasta but David won’t tell him that because he’s still wringing out teasing him about the raw onions), and says, “Of course I can.”

“Are you going to add me pulverizing the sauce to your documentary?” Matteo asks.

“Obviously,” David teases. “It was a very important step to your process.”

Matteo shoves more pasta in his mouth and honestly he’s a mess in a way that should not be endearing with that much food being chewed, but alas. This is who his heart has decided to stick itself to this summer. An Italian-German kid with a childish sense of humor, an appetite to match, and who David is starting to suspect is a little depressed.

Matteo takes a minute to speak again because he’s chewing, although David suspects he’d talk through it if he really wanted to. “Are you sure I’m a good subject for your film?”

“You’re amazing,” David assures him. But when Matteo looks like he doesn’t believe him, he adds, “You know what I hate about documentaries? People take them so seriously, like they have to be about something important and big, but I think that misses the magic of everyday life. They don’t have to be about exposing secrets to mean something.”

“So what’s this one mean?”

“I don’t know yet,” David says.

Matteo bursts out laughing. “What kind of director are you?”

“I don’t know,” David says a little defensively. He does plan stuff out. All he’s done is plan things out. Until Matteo. “I thought you were interesting.”

“Were you right?” Matteo asks, and it would sound smug if not for the way his smirk falters.

“Yeah,” David admits quietly. “I was.”

Matteo looks so happy about that, that in the end, it’s not about being brave. It doesn’t take much thought at all. David leans over and kisses him because there is nothing else he can picture himself doing. It’s short, barely anything, and he pulls away with an innocent smile. But it happened. He did it. 

David eats another bite of pasta while Matteo stares, processing. He’s still processing it too with a repetitive run of  _ IjustkissedMatteoFlorenziohmygodwhatdowedo _ .

Then Matteo’s hands are suddenly on the side of his face pulling him back in and they’re kissing for real this time. David drops his fork. And then they kiss again. And again. Matteo’s hands slide to the back of his neck. David lets his own find their way into his hoodie and that messy hair, and something in the back of his head reminds him that they’ll have to stop at some point to breath or  _ something _ , but as long as Matteo is okay with continuing, he is.

It's messy but they take their time until everything is perfect perfect perfect.

It’s Matteo who pulls away with a laugh. His forehead rests against David’s and he keeps their noses brushed together and when David opens his eyes he can see Matteo grinning at him in delight. His eyes sparkle and David wants to kiss him again so he does.

“I like you too,” he says, a bit obviously at this point.

Mattteo’s grin grows wider and he steps away to run his hand through his hair (David’s hands had just been there too), attempting to sound casual. “Cool.”

“Cool,” David agrees smugly.

“Can I-” Matteo starts quickly, second guesses it, and then continues anyway, “Can I see you tomorrow?”

“Like for a date?” David asks, just to make sure they’re on the same page.

“Yeah,” Matteo says sheepishly. “I guess.”

It shouldn’t make David nervous. He’s spent plenty of time alone with Matteo the past week or so. A least one or two of those might as well have been dates, but now there is kissing involved and holding hands and despite himself, David is excited. He’s only in Italy so long, and why not?

“Yeah,” he says, aiming for casual about as well as Matteo had. “Sounds good.”

“Cool,” Matteo says again, and his grin is like sunshine.

They finish Matteo’s pasta while sneaking glances at each other and hiding smiles and then realizing they don’t have to do that. Cleaning up is a mess because Matteo sprays David with sink water but he honestly has no clue what else he expected. David packs up his camera while Matteo waits for him by the door and then they race to David’s apartment in empty night streets.

Matteo kisses him on the porch step and it doesn't seem to occur to him to worry that David doesn't invite him up. There are lots of reasons that David wouldn't invite him inside, one being how late it is, and the other being that David can see that his room light is on and knows that Essam is awake. Matteo squeezes his hand and then disappears around the corner to sneak home.

“Guess what I perchance saw out the window tonight,” Essam says gleefully the second that David steps into the room.

David throws a pillow at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ummm sooooo this chapter is a mess and the vibes are not what I wanted but Matteo and David are also a mess so I excused it. For those of you who wanted to know more about Matteo, this was kind of the chapter for that, and for those of you who idk want this Davenzi to get together or something, this was also your chapter. And after this chapter is the roller coaster part of my plot so - ups and downs.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David meets an asshole (on a not so unrelated note: he also meets the parents)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there is a character in this chapter who devaluates depression and in general is one of people who is an asshole because they think they're right. Depression is not something that will simply go away if you try, and does not make you lazy or a burden. If you do have symptoms of depression, they are very real and I encourage you to go see a therapist. If you want to skip this character, skip the third (and last) part or ignore anything that comes out of Vincenzo's mouth and just know that both David and I think Matteo's dad is a shithead.

It’s a good morning when David wakes up. He finishes with all pre-production planning for his narrative and has arranged a couple days to shoot where everyone he needs will be able to be there, and he still has time to help Essam out with some of the same things before he leaves for his date. An actual date, not just something that he was accidentally thrown into when Laura tried to set him up last year, with someone he actually knows and likes and he knows likes him.

They had only agreed to hang out, so maybe it’s not a _ date _ date, because there’s really no place they are going in particular, but it’s just the fact that David can call it one that makes him giddy enough that Essam teases him for not being able to stop smiling.

“You’re so smitten,” Essam laughs, poking at his cheeks, and David turns bright red. Smitten. That’s one word for it.

“Shuddup,” he mutters.

“No,” Essam counters. David hadn’t expected him to shut up anyway. “I’ve never seen you _ blushing _ before, dude. It’s amazing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” David says, rolling his eyes but there’s a certain lightness to the day that makes it impossible for him to pull that off as any believable annoyance. “It’s a miracle.”

“A summer fling,” Essam crows. “I’m proud of you, man. And here we thought I’d be getting all the action.”

David ignores the tightening of his stomach at that. A _ fling _. He and Matteo are a fling. A summer tryst caught up in the whirlwind in a foreign country and the romance of Italy. Just a fling. And then David will go home to Berlin and leaves will fade to yellow and he’ll start school back up without ever seeing Matteo again.

The idea of never seeing Matteo again haunts him even as he makes excuses to leave, and tries not to be picky about the shirt that he’s going to wear, and when he leaves the apartment to the piazza he and Matteo are going to meet. _ A summer fling. _

Just a summer had given him enough courage to act, so why is it starting to seem like not such a great thing after all?

_ Matteo lives in Berlin too _, the back of his thoughts remind him. At least there’s that. 

So David makes a plan. A month from now, on his last day here, he’ll tell Matteo that he’s trans, and if it works out, he is never letting go of Matteo for as long as he can. And if it doesn’t… a summer fling is all that they’ll be. It’d probably be best that way.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Matteo says, attacking his sides from behind as he sneaks up on him, snapping David abruptly out of his head.

Matteo’s smile is infectious. 

“Want to share with the class?” Matteo asks innocently.

“Not really,” David answers honestly.

Matteo shrugs and then holds out a hand. It takes David long enough to realize that he’s supposed to take it that Matteo almost retracts it, looking embarrassed, but then David grabs on and doesn’t let go. He doesn’t want to be in his head all day if Matteo is outside of it. He makes himself another plan: have fun. He’s in Italy for fucks sake, with a cute boy, and they’re on a date, and it’s beyond anything he could have ever hoped for.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“I don’t know!” Matteo says brightly, and then starts dragging him down the streets. David laughs. Being happy doesn’t seem that hard at all.

* * *

They only have a few hours in between Matteo’s lunch and dinner shifts. Valentia gives them free gelato again and winks at David on their way out. And for someone that claims to not know where they are going, Matteo certainly has a place in mind. 

They sit on a wall overlooking Tuscan hills and swap ice creams when David gets tired of the _ nocciola _ and Matteo agrees to trade his _ fragola _. It’s been a couple weeks since his program started but every time David looks around, it feels like the image of a place that he dreamed of running away to back in high school when he would have given anything to be somewhere else. 

It’s weird to remember that people live permanently in this beautiful place. It’s someone’s home and when they look out the window, it’s just another day. David doesn’t want any day he has here to be just another day. When he glances over at Matteo, he likes that he can see how much that Matteo loves this place too. The impossibility of it, like living in another world, even if Matteo’s home life here might not be the greatest.

They finish their gelato in silence, kicking at each other’s feet before David finally traps their ankles together.

“Do you ever want to run away?” David asks curiously after they’ve finished.

“Sounds lonely,” Matteo answers.

It sounds like he’s answering a completely different question. Running away doesn’t sound lonely. Not to David. He hadn’t met almost everyone he has now until he had run away. He wonders if he still would have wanted to run away if he had lived here, but just because it’s pretty doesn’t mean that monstrous things don’t happen. 

“Do you?” Matteo asks.

“No,” David finds himself answering. “I used to.”

“Where would you go?” Matteo asks curiously, and David admits, “Detroit.”

“Detroit?” Matteo echoes with a laugh. “What’s in Detroit?”

“There’s lots of things,” David laughs back, pretending to shove Matteo off the wall. It’s not a long drop down but there’s still a sliver of a threat. “It’s the greatest music city ever. Aretha Franklin was from there. Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye.”

“Marvin _ Gaye _,” Matteo snickers, like the mature adult he is.

“You’re gay,” David shoots back, because he’s also an adult.

“I thought you’d like it because of something nerdy, like a movie or something!”

“My favorite movie takes place there too,” David admits, and Matteo shouts an smug, “I knew it!”

And then Matteo actually shoves him. David grabs his arms to hold him back because if he’s going to fall, he’s taking Matteo down with him. They don’t fall. Instead, Matteo drags David closer and then maneuvers David’s hand in his lap so that he can play with his fingers. It’s pretty gay, and it also makes David’s heart glow with happiness at how casual they manage to do it.

For the first time, he thinks, _ shit. I could fall in love _.

He adds it to the list of things to deal with in the future.

“What about now?” Matteo asks.

David blinks at him in confusion, his brain power mostly devoted to memorizing the feel of Matteo’s fingers around his. “What _ about _ now?”

“Do you ever want to run away now?”

“Maybe I did run away,” David jokes, because he's not great at dealing with direct feelings. “To here.”

“I wouldn’t run away here,” Matteo admits, squeezing David’s fingers as he looks down at them.

“Hey,” David untangles their ankles so that he can sit directly facing Matteo and frown at him softly, trying to find something encouraging. “Then it’s a good thing I did, because I got to meet you.”

“Are you really running away from something?” Matteo asks under his breath.

David is. He’s always running. But not from Berlin, at least not anymore, and it’s progress enough to be able to say that.

“No,” he admits. “I like my home now.”

* * *

Matteo’s dad is waiting for him when David drops him off at the restaurant. David doesn’t know anything about Matteo’s dad other than he is strict and says passive aggressive things that hurt Matteo. He seems kind enough at the door, with stringy blonde hair matching Matteo’s and a soft smile, but the most hurtful people never look like they’d hurt anyone.

David has already predetermined that he doesn’t like him, but Matteo’s dad is polite and so is he, so when he offers his hand, instead of ignoring it or immediately leaving the scene without a word, David shakes it.

“You must be David,” Matteo’s dad greets. “You’re the German boy that’s been hanging out with my son.”

“That’s me,” David agrees.

“_ Dad _ ,” Matteo mutters. Whatever is supposed to be implied in that, David doesn’t know. A warning not to embarrass him? Whatever it is, David is out of his depth. He needs to get back to Essam. They start filming tomorrow and David should probably finalize plans, or make sure he has all their props, or whatever excuse can get him out of here soonest. He was _ not _ planning on a meet the parents.

“What?” Matteo’s dad asks innocently. “I’m just introducing myself. Call me Vincenzo, David.”

“Nice to meet you,” David says, because again, he’s way too polite for this. And then he tries to make his way out of this conversation without hitting any potential landmines that Matteo and David had pointedly avoided discussing - for example: is Matteo out to his dad? He seems confident about it with David while in town, or at least with Valentia, but his stories about his dad are tense. And what did he tell his dad about David in the first place? David doesn’t want to cross any lines. In the end, he lands on a simple nod and a, “Thanks for hanging out, Matteo, I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah,” Matteo agrees. He looks like he is about to say more, but then he’s shuffled inside with a, “Why don’t you get your apron on? The dinner crowd is going to start showing soon.”

David turns to leave, but as soon as he does, he hears, “David, do you want to stay for a drink? I could use the company before orders start coming in.”

David slowly forces himself to turn around. He exchanges glances with Matteo over his dad’s shoulder. Matteo shrugs at him which doesn’t give much insight for what he should do, but it’s not a bad reaction either. He gets to see Matteo longer if he stays so…

“Sure,” he finally agrees, and Vincenzo smiles.

“Swell!-” (_ he unironically uses the word swell oh my god) _ “-Red or white?”

David does not want to bother asking for a beer instead. If he’s learned one thing in Italy, it’s that they don’t ask if you want beer because there’s often only one on tap compared to the dozens of wines on shelves. He asks for a red and slides onto a stool at the bar. He can see the doors to the kitchen that he and Matteo had been in just last night. 

Vincenzo follows his gaze and then says, “Top secret,” with a gleam in his eye that reminds David of Matteo.

“So I’ve heard,” David allows himself to joke.

“Of course you have,” Vincenzo laughs. “You were that boy Matteo was flirting with a week ago, aren’t you? Who was speaking English?”

It at least answers the question of whether or not Matteo is out. 

“Yeah,” David admits. He does not apologize for distracting Matteo although he feels like he should, looking back and remembering the time-sensitive way Vincenzo had called Matteo back to the kitchen.

“So I’d be right in assuming that those times he’s disappeared, he’s been out with you?”

It’s something that’s in the phrasing that feels off. Disappeared, for one thing, suggests Matteo had not been where he was supposed to be. David immediately regrets agreeing to a drink. David has had enough dealing with people who don’t want him around to last a lifetime. He doesn’t want to extend that to people who don’t like him hanging out with their kid.

But Vincenzo looks like he likes him plenty, he’s still smiling as he bustles around the counter, grabbing a glass and a nearby bottle of wine to pour. He looks up at David and pauses kindly when he sees something in his expression. “Look, David, it’s not you I’m worried about. Matteo is just the kind of kid that needs consistency in his life, you know? This job, for one, I am not the biggest fan of him ditching.”

David would like to point out that they had actually had to stop their date so that Matteo could show up for his shift here, but he also remembers Matteo tossing his apron aside to bail and show David an abandoned building, so there isn’t much of a defense. But he’s seen Matteo and knows he can be dedicated if he wants to be. And he’s seen how excited he can be when in that top secret kitchen that Vincenzo doesn’t let him in. 

He remembers Matteo calling himself lazy, and then following David’s defense up with, _ that’s not what my dad says _. 

“I think he just wants to be involved more,” David counters boldly. “Being a waiter is not very exciting.”

Vincenzo fixes David with a _ look _ and sets the poured glass of wine in front of him, pouring himself another one. “He won’t commit to what I involve him in now.”

David looks back toward the front door both in longing and desperation for Matteo not to be close enough to hear this blatant character assassination. He doesn’t know Matteo all that well, to be fair, so it could be completely true, but there’s something of a contradiction in trying to force Matteo into consistency but not letting him do something he wants to be consistently doing.

Matteo is smiling at a couple he is seating out front, but he glances at David like he can feel him watching him. His smile fades as he looks between David and his dad, furrowing his eyebrows together and pouting like, _ are you okay _?

David hates that he’s the one Matteo is worried about. He smiles, albeit awkwardly, back and Matteo goes back to what he was doing. When David turns back to Vincenzo, he thinks briefly, he’s only in Italy so long, so the only thing stopping him from accidentally throwing wine at Vincenzo’s shirt is that he wants to be able to show up here for Matteo again. It's another thing to add to his list of things to do before he leaves.

“I’m a filmmaker, and I get things done fairly fast,” David says instead. He doesn’t touch the wine. “But I don’t like special effects and avoid it like the plague. That doesn’t mean I’m not a hard worker.”

Vincenzo is still _ looking _ at him. “How old are you?”

“Twenty,” David answers, but even before he says it, he knows the argument Vincenzo is going to use.

“You’re too young to know what you’re talking about.”

_ I ran away from home when I was sixteen, transitioned to entirely different gender and survived several cases of severe bullying, and have faced more adversity in my life than you have being handed down a restaurant in rural Italy _, David says in his head but not out loud. He knows what he’s talking about when talking about hard work but he’s learned it does nothing to tell people like Vincenzo that.

“I know what I'm talking about," David disagrees.

“So do I. You know, Matteo and his mother and I used to spend all day in the kitchen. They’re some of my best memories,” Vincenzo says. “But then his mother got sick and I thought she was missing home so we moved back to Berlin, but she didn’t get better.”

David’s stomach drops. This is not going to be a happy story.

“It was upsetting and tense and hard, and when she wouldn’t bring herself to do anything at all, eventually I had to leave and come back to this restaurant because I couldn’t take care of her forever,” Vincenzo continues. “In many ways, Matteo is just like his mother. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

David does. But he’s definitely not coming to the same conclusion that Vincenzo was hoping he would. He thinks that Matteo’s dad had a bad experience with someone who was depressed, didn’t know how to take care of them, and doesn’t know how to take care of someone now. He thinks that Matteo’s dad blames people for problems that aren’t their fault and doesn’t try to address them. David doesn’t need to be here or to listen. David offers a faux smile, just for an excuse, and then stands up from his stool to leave.

“Thanks for letting me know,” David informs him tightly.

Vincenzo drinks from his own glass of wine and offers a small smile back, like he gets it and he’s doing David a favor by saying softly, “I love my son very much. But you don’t deserve an entire relationship of taking care of someone.”

David drains his glass of wine, because if he can’t spill it he might as well find a different way to cost Vincenzo money, and leaves the room without a word.

“Hey,” Matteo says, catching his arm on his way out. He looks concerned. “What’d he say?”

David takes one look at Matteo’s face and decides that he can’t tell him. “Nothing.”

“Okaaaaay,” Matteo drawls skeptically.

“He just wanted to get to know me,” David lies, plastering on a smile again. “Did you tell him we were dating?”

“I, uh-” Matteo says awkwardly, face red as he itches the back of his neck. “No. He must have just figured it out, I guess.”

“Oh,” David says, and just to dispel all the tension, he adds cheekily. “He likes me.”

“So do I,” Matteo admits, and although he had said that last night too, it’s straightforward and blunt enough to make David flustered. 

“Hey, um,” he starts, trying to forget the fact that he’s fairly certain Matteo’s dad is watching them from inside the restaurant. He doesn’t know what he expects David to do, walk away or ignore Matteo now or what, but David is feeling bitter and also very defiant because fuck parents thinking they know what’s best for their children even if it harms them, so he continues with his plan anyway, “I have lots to do this week, but you should stop by.”

“You want me to help on your super awesome detective film too?” Matteo asks, and for some reason David is surprised he even remembered.

“Yeah,” David grins. “That one.”

Matteo grins back at him, before looking around the seating area and sighing, his shoulders sloping in on themselves when he realizes he has to work now. His eyes are playfully begging when he looks back at David like David would be able to save him. David doesn’t know how to.

David forces himself to laugh, and then leans forward and kisses Matteo’s forehead, teasing, “You’ll be fine.”

“You should hang out here more often,” Matteo whines. “I get _ bored _.”

“Sure,” David agrees easily. “Later, yeah?”

Matteo takes his hand and squeezes it before letting out a dramatic groan and heading back to take orders from the couple he had seated earlier. David watches him for a second before glancing inside at Matteo’s dad. Vincenzo shrugs at him like he thinks David is being an idiot but isn’t about to stop him. David smiles and waves an innocent _fuck you_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to post every other week on Friday/Saturdays. This gives me a) time to chill, b) time to work on my druck gift exchange project, and c) idk I find that it's the schedule I seem to be sticking to that already slots easily into my daily life. Also apologies for Matteo's dad, he was not intended to be such a physical presence in this chapter but he was suggested to be a big enough problem in Matteo's life in previous chapters that I've gone back and forth on whether to address it. It's an interesting dynamic knowing what we do about his character and then making a story where Matteo lives with him for 1/4 of the year.


	6. summer fling MIGHT mean a thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David's plan to push any problems to the end of the summer becomes a bit problematic

“And, action!” David calls from behind his camera.

They’re working in the alleyway that runs past the student apartments today, and they’ve been filming over an hour. Essam stands next to him with the lighting gear pointed directly at the actor that David has dragged out today.

The scene is simple. A detective has just found a hoodied dead body. He investigates, finds the paper mache murder weapon, and then leaves to solve the crime. The lighting is dark, like a 40’s black and white film noir, and the only thing missing is an ounce of professionalism.

Stefan leans over one of the other film students taking a nap as they pretend to be dead and exaggeratingly strokes his chin in thought before dramatically flipping out a notebook and jotting down a few things in giant strokes. David likes Stefan. He really does. But sometimes…

“Cut!” he calls, and Stefan looks up.

“Yeah, boss?” Stefan asks.

“Maybe be more subtle?” David suggests. “This is a serious film.”

“What should my face look like?” Stefan asks. “Like, what should I be emoting?”

“Like you’re coming to terms with your own mortality,” David deadpans. 

Somehow, that makes sense to him and Stefan nods, thinking that over for a second. He really is a good actor, he came on the trip from the acting program at their school hoping to learn more about film, but he’s just barely pushing the type of pretentious that only takes highly specific, somewhat morbid, notes for what level he should be performing at. David has had to tell him multiple times that on film, his expressions don’t have to be seen from seats dozens of yards away.

“My own mortality,” Stefan finally muses, and David nods. “Got it.”

“Essam, turn the light more towards Stefan than the body, we want that in shadow,” David instructions, looking through the camera as Essam does just that, and then he grins. “Alright. Let’s go from the top again. Action!”

Stefan moves into frame and David can immediately tell that he’s got the shot. When Stefan investigates the napping body of their fellow student, David can see the moment that he comes to terms with his own mortality. He hadn't even known that was an actual expression. And then Stefan investigates more seriously. He finds the paper mache dagger and slips it into a bag from his suit pocket. And then, decisively, he stands, determined to solve the case. 

“Awesome!” David calls, as soon as Stefan is out of frame again. “Cut! Let’s get that from a few more angles and then I think we’ve got the scene.”

“I did it?” Stefan asks excitedly, and David grins. 

“Yeah, it looks really good.”

“Hey,” a voice calls from the top of the alleyway, and all three of them look up to see Matteo with his hands shoved in his pockets.

Essam grins and turns to David with a hushed, “You invited your boytoy?”

“He’s not my boytoy,” David hissed back before grinning up at Matteo. “Hey! You made it!”

“I was going to ring for your apartment but I thought I heard noise over here,” Matteo says awkwardly.

“Oh, yeah, sorry for not letting you know,” David apologizes sincerely, but Matteo only shrugs and joins them in the alleyway with little comment. He looks at the scene they’ve set up.

“Dead guy?” he asks, pointing to the napping student. He points at Stefan, then the paper mache dagger. “Detective? Murder weapon that’s not the murder weapon?”

“Yep,” David agrees. Stefan is looking between the two of them with interest.

“Hey, man,” Essam greets, holding his hand up from where he sits for a fist bump. When Matteo obliges, he turns it into a complicated handshake that Matteo has no choice but to follow. “Nice to see you again.”

“Detective Stefan,” Stefan introduces, sticking out his hand. Matteo looks wary to shake it after Essam’s but does anyway.

“You’re-” Matteo fades off hesitantly, looking around at the set, before guessing, “A film student too?”

“Theatre. But I thought I’d learn the craft this summer,” Stefan corrects, before turning to David. “Did we need another person for this scene or?”

“No,” David says awkwardly. “He’s my-”

And then he realizes that he doesn’t really have an answer for that. He shouldn’t have even tried to begin that sentence. Essam looks amused out of his mind. Matteo blinks, his eyes slightly wider than usual, but he doesn't provide any context for how David should answer. David backpaddles, “He’s Matteo.”

“Your Matteo?” Essam asks smugly.

“Um,” David starts, looking at Matteo again. Matteo waits for an answer as well. “Yeah?”

He must have chosen the right answer because Matteo ducks his head with a small smile. 

Stefan catches on quickly. “David, you didn’t tell me you met someone.”

David hadn’t been aware they hung out enough until now to tell him about these kinds of things. He also wasn’t even the sort of person to talk about meeting people in general. He shrugs, and says just to satisfy him, “Next time then.”

Stefan nods, properly satisfied with this new level of friendship, but he can feel the energy shift from Matteo at his side. It shouldn’t be an impossible thing to suggest he'll tell Stefan about someone else in the future, especially considering he and Matteo might never know each other again after this summer, but David knows he shouldn't have said it the second it comes out.

“I should go,” Matteo offers. “You look busy.”

“No!” David says a little desperately. 

Essam catches on with the only chill that he has ever had about this David-Matteo situation since it started, and adds, “Is it okay if you stick around for a minute or so? I’m tired and I need someone to hold the lights for me while I take a break.”

Matteo looks between all three of them, and also the sleeping student on the ground. David is afraid he might leave. But then he agrees, “Okay.”

David lets out an inward sigh of relief as Essam starts teaching Matteo how some of the equipment works. David smiles at him gratefully, before realizing that Stefan is looking at him for instruction too, and David forces himself into action instead of trying to fix things with Matteo. He needs to forget about some things for now and finish this location scene so that they aren’t here for another hour.

They finish fast enough that Matteo never gets the chance to back out. David takes back the thought of ever dropping Carl the Paper Mache Nightmare Ball on Essam’s head when he ushers Stefan away afterward, along with waking up their dead guy, to return equipment to the apartments and get snacks, leaving Matteo shifting awkwardly on his feet in the alleyway. For a moment he and David just look at each other.

“Thanks for helping out,” David finally says.

“Yeah,” Matteo agrees. He looks like he has something on his mind, the same way the idea of leaving each other has been on David's. David waits while Matteo takes a deep breath and blurts out, “What part of Germany are you from?”

And although he had been somehow expecting it, David’s stomach drops. It’s treacherous ground he’s walking and he’d been foolish to assume it’d never come up. If he says Berlin, he’s afraid that Matteo will ask for more, and then David would be left in a free fall with no safety net or escape. If Matteo were to ask for more, he could say no, but then Matteo would believe that David doesn’t care. He could say yes, and he could end up being the one to be hurt.

“Munich,” he lies.

That way it’s neither of their faults.

Matteo shoves his hands further in his pockets and doesn’t say anything about that for a long time. And then he nods. “Okay.”

David, desperate and longing to make sure they're still alright, at least for now, steps forward and holds Matteo’s wrists to slowly draw his hands from his pockets and hold them in his own. They feels like they belong there. David doesn't want to hurt anyone. He rests his forehead against Matteo’s and admits, “I want to spend every minute of this summer with you.”

“Me too,” Matteo whispers.

It feels like a final deadline to the rest of the time they have together. He doesn’t know how he’ll be able to take back this lie at the end of the summer. Will he even be able to? Or did he doom any future because he was scared?

“I have the rest of the day free,” he offers. “If you want to do something?”

“Like what?” Matteo asks.

David tries to think of something, but he’s not the one who knows all the places in the area. However, he does manage to come up with, “My sister needs a souvenir. Know any good places?”

Matteo gives him a weak smile and lets go of one of his hands to squeeze the other one forward as he steps away. “Of course I do,” he says, and David pretends to smile back.

* * *

They try to forget about it. They mostly do, letting themselves be lost in finding strange things shop by shop, and telling jokes, and kissing Valentia’s free gelato off their lips. But David can tell it’s a thought now, in the back of both of their minds, that this won’t last forever.

David pretends he never said anything and so does Matteo.

“Venezian mask?” Matteo asks, shoving his face around a shelf corner with a laugh, an extravagant mask with the most horrific faces David has ever seen hiding Matteo’s beautiful one.

“We aren’t in Venice,” David disagrees, and he can tell Matteo is pouting even if he can’t see it.

Sure enough, when Matteo lowers the mask, he has an exaggerated frown to match the red painted scowl of the mask. He sets it back on a random shelf and continues looking. “What does your sister like?”

David thinks of Laura dancing around the kitchen to niche French operatic music wearing an ornate robe and thinks her taste is probably too highly specific to explain except that there is a chance that she would enjoy anything foreign as long as it was given with love.

“She likes everything,” David says with a smile. “The stranger the better. I’ve never known anything or anyone that she couldn’t love.”

“She sounds nice,” Matteo comments.

“Yeah,” David agrees. “She’s my favorite person in the world.”

Matteo just looks at him for a second. David doesn’t know what he is seeing but it feels overwhelming to be looked at in the way. He has to glance away before it gets too much, pretending to be interested in a collection of magnets that he’d never consider getting, and tries not to feel guilty about lying.

“You like your family,” Matteo says in awe, like that somehow makes him happy to know that David is happy, and David has no plans to burst his bubble. 

“Yeah,” David agrees. “Laura is the best.”

If Matteo notices he left out his parents, he doesn’t say anything. Instead he offers in return, “I like my mom. I didn’t used to but I think… she tries really hard. It’s better when I’m with her sometimes.”

It’s something of a relief to hear. Especially having met Matteo’s father, and the way he talks about the two of them. The meaningful way Matteo says it makes David think that he shared that information on purpose so that David knows that it’s not always just Matteo in a grey house and a shitty parent. Having a loving mother at least explains how Matteo can still smile like the world a beautiful place, and David thinks it’s nice to know, even subtly, that both he and his mom are better than what Vincenzo thinks. 

“Maybe you should bring something back for her too,” David says.

His eyes land on a few scarves hanging on a rack nearby. He whisks one off and loops it around Matteo’s neck to pull him closer. The air seems to get thicker as David adjusts it with a few inches between them and inspects Matteo with a smile. Matteo watches and watches and watches, and neither one of them breath.

“I think she’d like this one, don’t you think?” David whispers.

“Yeah,” Matteo breathes.

And then David kisses the rest of the air away.

The owner kicks them out of the shop, with a loud Italian, “Florenzi! Make out somewhere else!” because apparently everyone knows Matteo around here.

Matteo giggles and pulls him through the marketplace until they’ve annoyed every shop owner and David has found a small leather handbag for Laura engraved with small elephants walking along on the bottom. He ties it with a scarf that he knows she’ll enjoy, and then realizes he still has a few weeks before he gets to give it to her.

He’d rather have the few weeks than see her now, because now Matteo is with him.

Matteo buys a scarf for his mom, even though he has longer before he returns to Germany, but at least they have shopping done. They aren’t allowed back in most of the shops anyway, at least not with each other.

Matteo doesn’t have a dinner shift. At sunset, he leads David through new cobbled streets and alleyways until they are out of the city altogether and running through vineyards. David doesn’t know if they’ll be kicked out of these too but Matteo doesn’t seem to mind much. With the familiar way that he leads him, David gets a feeling this is a place that he goes to often, like that abandoned building, when he wants to get away.

David wonders how many places Matteo has to hide in this city.

They end up on top of a hill as everything turns dark and the moon rises over the horizon. There’s a familiar place that Matteo lays on the ground, the grass already flattened with use, and David draws himself next to him so that they are side by side and looking at the sky.

“Come here often?” David teases, and Matteo elbows him with a laugh. 

“Ass.”

“Do you know any constellations?” David asks, looking back up at the stars.

Matteo shrugs. “No.”

“So you come out here to…?”

It’s a leading question, but one that Matteo answers. “To breathe.”

David gets it. He doesn't say anything about it. There are lots of things they don't say to each other. Instead, he points up at a line of three stars just above them and says, “That’s Orion’s belt.”

“His  _ belt _ ?” Matteo mocks, and this time it is David who elbows him.

“Ass.” He moves his finger up to the rest of the constellation as he explains, “There’s his shoulders, and that long string of stars is his bow as he hunts.”  Matteo is quiet but David can tell he knows where he is pointing. “And behind him is Sirius, the head of one of his hunting dogs. It’s the brightest star in the sky.”

The longer he points, with long winded stories of myth and history, he can see Matteo’s head shift in his direction until he isn't bothering to look. But David continues to point out constellation after constellation, so maybe one day if they ever have to leave each other, Matteo will be able to look up at the sky and at least remember something.

“How do you know all that?” Matteo finally asks.

David shrugs. He spent a lot of time in the library in high school, when he felt like he had nothing else. Except Laura. He always had Laura, and he always had books. “Practice.”

“Do you think-” Matteo starts. He hesitates, and then continues again. “How far is Munich from Berlin?”

David almost wants to cry. He shouldn’t have lied. He panicked and he lied and now it hurts.

“I’m not from Munich,” he whispers.

Matteo is quiet, and then he realizes, “You’re from Berlin too.”

“Yeah,” David admits. They’re both not looking at each other. They’re looking at the thousands of stars that they can see away from the lights of the city. It’s more stars than David ever saw in Berlin.

David shifts on his side so he can see the shadow of Matteo’s face in the moonlight, before Matteo can come to any conclusions, and tries to patch things up with a weak explanation. “You scare me so much.”

“Why?” Matteo asks.

“Because,” David says, and then realizes that now is a chance. To tell Matteo everything he fears, and to come out and see what happens, but he wasn’t lying when he said he was scared. At this point, the wrong reaction from Matteo would break his heart too much for David to handle. He takes a shallow breath, “I have a secret. And I don’t want to have to tell you quite yet.”

He’ll have to eventually. He promises himself he will. But not now.

Matteo shifts to look over at him too. “You can trust me,” he says.

“I know,” David answers, but then doesn’t elaborate. 

Matteo twists his lips together but then nods and takes his hand with a, “It’s that you’re in the mafia, isn’t it?”

“Wouldn’t you know if I was in the mafia?” David teases back, and for a moment it’s okay.

“So, what do you want to do?” Matteo asks, and David feels a little lighter knowing that Matteo has left any choice in his court. He isn’t angry, or hurt, or upset, he just sounds as afraid as David.

“Can we just be together?” David asks quietly. “Just for now. We can just be us, with no parents or secrets or deadline.”

“And Berlin?” Matteo asks in return.

“I don’t know,” David answers.

“Okay,” Matteo says before flipping onto his back and looking up into the sky again. He continues, like he’s just reminding himself, “One summer.”

David wants to repeat it but he doesn’t like saying that out loud. It even hurts to hear. He’ll tell him eventually, David reminds himself. He just wants a few weeks where he’s just David and there’s nothing more to it.

“Hey,” he whispers, drawing himself to Matteo’s side. Matteo melts against him wherever he touches and David doesn’t ever want to let go. He kisses Matteo’s forehead. “I really,  _ really _ like you.”

“But you can’t promise Berlin?” Matteo asks, so quiet that David almost doesn’t hear.

“You don’t want to promise yourself to me,” David answers. “Not yet.”

“You could be in the mafia and I’d still want you,” Matteo admits, and David lets out a small disbelieving laugh.

“We could be crime lords together.”

“The best of the best,” Matteo agrees. “We could sneak weed into Valentia’s gelato and get the whole city high, and no one would ever know it was us.”

“That’s not what crime lords do,” David chides. He can't help but laugh even if the tension isn't quite dissolved. 

Matteo shrugs, and then smirks.  “That’s what we’d do.”

David hugs Matteo until he feels Matteo hug him back and they’re both resting against each other. It’s warm here. There’s a space in the air that is waiting for David to say,  _ my parents were the kindest people I'd known until I came out as trans and now I’m afraid everyone else is the same even though I know you probably aren’t _ , but he doesn’t want to ruin the moment.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Matteo finally says. 

David takes it and runs with it. Because he knows he will have to, some time, because it’s not something he’ll be able to hide forever. He’s okay being transgender. He really is. But he has one summer that he doesn’t have to be anything at all, so he promises, “I will. Before we leave, I’ll tell you. And then we can figure out Berlin.”

“Okay,” Matteo agrees. It's after a moment of thought, but it's said like he’s confident that he will still want David even after this summer no matter his secret. He takes David’s hand and smiles, and David is confident that Matteo’s answer will be the same then too.

Berlin is a big city but they can find places to meet each other there.

David kisses him softly, lightly pressing Matteo into the ground as Matteo’s hands come up to his cheeks. It takes all of his mental energy to pull himself away and let go in order to stand and offer Matteo a hand. Matteo silently pleads for David to come back to their post, taking his hand and tugging him back down. 

“Essam is probably waiting up for me,” David laughs.

“Essam loves me,” Matteo says smugly, which is absolutely true even if David won’t give him the satisfaction.

“Yeah, but he’s always super annoying about me coming back late,” David whines.

Matteo smirks up at him and wiggles his eyebrows. “What does he think you are doing?”

“Hanging out with you, asshole.”

“But that is what you’re doing,” Matteo says, and he’s absolutely right.

“Come on,” David rolls his eyes, kissing Matteo’s lips again before dragging him back up with him. “I don’t know my way home in the dark. You got us lost.”

“I’m not lost,” Matteo says easily.

“Which is why-” David emphasizes, pulling his stubborn body forward. “You need to get me back home.”

“Or,” Matteo says innocently. “I could not.”

David considers this. Matteo looks smugly proud of himself, and David desperately wants to wipe that expression from his face. So maybe he’s a bit competitive. Sue him. “I’m not going to kiss you until you get us back.”

Matteo looks horrified. He actually whines, the poor boy. But he grumbles and takes David’s hand to drag him back to the lights of the city in the distance. “That’s not fair.”

“Nothing is fair in love and war,” David says easily. 

“What one is this?” Matteo asks, after a moment of silence.

“War, obviously,” David answers, and Matteo laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fellas, I have three writing projects that I'm excited about, a few more things I'm working on here and there, and I'm slowly catching up on a list of things I need to do so life is great. Anyway I really like this chapter and have zero negative vibes about it and I hope you guys do too.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time flies by when you're having fun (and also you're lost. mentally and physically)

The next week goes by so quickly that David is left scrambling for time. Time to shoot, time for the scattered classes and assignments that he still has to keep up with, and all the time he can manage to hang onto with Matteo.

Matteo works at the restaurant almost every day. Sometimes when David can’t focus, he’ll go there and order a caffe, sitting outside where he’ll only catch glimpses of Mr. Florenzi. Vincenzo raises an eyebrow but doesn’t move from behind the bar or kitchen and David prefers it that way. That way he can smile and tease Matteo and try to worm his way into getting a free dessert or two while Matteo hits him with his notepad.

There isn’t much focus at Pasta Della Florenzi either but David is quickly becoming addicted to laughter. He might be in love with Matteo’s and his own laugh is so rarely this light-hearted. 

David had once had the thought that he never stopped running. There was no time for laughter, or taking breaks, when there were things to get done and every day he adds another thing he needs to his to-do list. He feels like he has to work twice as hard to prove himself capable because if he’s not perfect, if he doesn’t get something exactly right, it proves some sort of negative expectation that no one has ever expressed. 

But with Matteo it feels like a pause. Like David has been holding his breath his whole entire life and never really noticed, and all of a sudden there is oxygen.

They ignore the passing of time.

In between orders and serving food, Matteo will sit with him at his table and they’ll talk about how David’s shoots are going. They’ll plot out his documentary in scribbles (mostly Matteo’s) in David’s notebook. Matteo is occasionally forced to introduce him to regulars, like Attilio from the gift shop and Martina who goes to a local music school, when they say hello and it’s no wonder Matteo knows everyone when they come so often.

Within a couple days of this pattern, they start saying hello to David too as they pass through, or they’ll sit with him and talk. David is forced to admit that he does know a fair amount of Italian, or at least Matteo learns when he comes outside and finds David in a somewhat stumbling, but generally knowledgeable, conversation about how he enjoys the city. Matteo looks slightly horrified at this result, but mostly because he quickly learns this opens up the opportunity for his neighbors to start gossiping about him once they learn his beau speaks their language. 

David thinks it’s hilarious right up until Matteo starts teasing him about his disastrous first attempt at communicating with him. He tells the story to Valentia when she stops by, who laughs and pinches David’s cheeks as he pretends to be invested in whatever he is trying to work on at the moment. 

By the time that Essam starts to join them, and then Stefan, they’ve created quite the everchanging group gathered outside of the restaurant. They exchange conversations and stories, with a strange mix of Italian, translated German, and whatever anyone expresses in pieces of English that anyone else might know.

David has never really had this happen before: attracting enough people for it to be a thing. He sticks to himself. He storyboards in the corner of cafes and sits in the front of classrooms where most people avoid. He should be embarrassed about the way Matteo shows easy affection in front of strangers when he passes by and takes orders, and the sudden interest it brings him, but he doesn’t think he could ever be embarrassed being associated with Matteo Florenzi.

Just like that, there is a group of people interested in his life, asking him about the film program, and whether there is going to be a screening of the films he makes, and mostly, they ask him about Berlin. 

_ It must be nice there _ , they say. 

_ It’s nice here _ , David replies, and then he asks Guiliana about her kids, or Marco about his bike shop.

There’s five of them outside, including Essam and David, when Matteo ends another one of his shifts and steps outside to drag David away. Essam grins and waves, while Attilio rolls his eyes and yells something about not making out in public spaces again. It’s another day that they don’t have plans, and David knows they’ll end up playing Mario Kart at Matteo’s or wander around until they’re forced to return.

“You’re so cool,” Matteo says abruptly.

“What?” David asks in surprise, because it isn’t often he considers himself a very cool person.

“Guiliana keeps asking me when you’re going to stop by again whenever you’re not there,” Matteo says as if that explains everything.

“She spends too much time there,” David immediately replies, but it hadn’t occurred to him that he was ever a thought outside of being there in front of the person thinking. And then he pauses and adds, “They think I’m interesting because of you,” because that’s what really gets the conversation started, every time.

“David,” Matteo says in disbelief. “All it took was one conversation, and each and every one of my neighbors fell in love with you. You know what you’re doing with your life and you’re doing it. You speak multiple languages. You’re friendly. You’re literally the coolest.”

Matteo has seen him as the guy who forgot months of Duolingo when he saw a cute boy, and who lives in a constant state of reaching for perfection that doesn’t exist. He knows that David runs away, and he keeps secrets, and he messes up and lies and hurts people. He thinks that Matteo is hurting sometimes when he sees the way he looks at David when he thinks he isn’t looking -- like he doesn’t think he’ll see him again. But Matteo still thinks David is cool. 

It’s an interesting thought, that somehow being cool and being flawed don’t have to be separated concepts.

David grabs a camera and they sneak into the vineyard again. He films Matteo laughing, Matteo collapsing dramatically on the ground where they had laid before, and the city in the distance. He lets Matteo talk about memories, and cooking, and his family in Berlin. Family, to him, is a jumble of friends who had been there when he’d fallen and the people close to them until they had all combined in a giant group that makes David long for something like that in his own life. Permanent, and not a collection of people that he’ll leave in a couple weeks drinking espressos together while he waits for Matteo to get off work. 

David records it all. He’ll have a lot of footage to go through, but he doesn’t mind.

More time passes by.

He ends up filming Matteo play Mario Kart after all.

He learns that rain in Italy comes down in a downpour, sudden and strange against the heat of the day, and that it has he and Matteo running for the alleyways as people pull their laundry quickly in from their window. Matteo brings him to that abandoned building again, from the first week, and David films again. The sound of rain splatters against the roof and stops as suddenly as it started.

There is a local festival in the piazza with loud music blasted from stereos and a lot of dancing. Matteo refuses to dance, or at least doesn’t do it very well, until David takes his hand and insists that he learn what everyone else is doing. Matteo says he doesn’t know it. David suspects otherwise, but they get to mess around and spin until David finds he much prefers this dance. By the end of the night, they are swaying together and David drags Matteo to his house half asleep on his feet.

Matteo sits in on David’s film shoots, helping Essam with the lighting and the sound, so often that David makes up his mind to put him in the credits. After wrapping the final shot, they take Stefan and Essam to Valentia’s gelato shop to celebrate, and David is fairly certain he hasn’t had to pay for ice cream since arriving. Valentia delights in Stefan and Essam’s manners, and gives them their gelato for free too.

There are only a couple more weeks of David’s program left, and it hangs over their head without acknowledgement. Sometimes Matteo will grow quiet, and it takes an awkwardly placed joke to break him out of it. David’s heart squeezes every time he looks at the calendar, and the magic of the city is only going to last so long.

They need an escape. 

David sets aside his to-do list.

“Really?” Matteo asks, as he steps outside of his house to look at what David has brought them.

David grins and pushes forward a bike. Matteo takes it with an amused huff, shaking his head slightly at David like he can’t believe he would do this. David doesn’t see why not. He doesn’t have class until tomorrow morning, Matteo doesn’t have a dinner shift, and it’s cool enough today that David isn’t sweating yet.

“I’ll race you to the vineyards,” David challenges.

Matteo grins back at him and hops on the bike. David doesn’t wait. He takes off down the streets, pedaling forward with a glance behind him to make sure Matteo is following, and laughs. He can hear Matteo laughing behind him too.

A couple people scramble out of the way when they see the two boys speeding down the hill on their bikes, but David pays them no mind. David is hardly the person he was in high school, he’s an adult for one thing and he hasn’t ridden his bike in a while, but he isn’t about to be stopped now.

He hears a shriek behind him and Matteo calling out an apology in Italian, but when he looks behind him, Matteo is still on his tail, having swerved to avoid someone leaving a shop. David laughs again, and Matteo looks positively joyful.

This chaos was probably not what Marco had in mind when letting David borrow the bikes.

They race down the streets until they ride outside the city gate and onto dirt roads. Surprisingly, despite the backpack David is carrying, he still manages to keep ahead while Matteo cycles behind him. He doesn’t know where they are stopping, except that it’s easier to race with no end in mind than to think ahead about where they’ll end up.

They continue biking even when neither are trying to be the fastest and Matteo puffs alongside him on the road. They ride past the vineyard, and then a couple rich-people-villas, and past a fork in the road leading by tall trees shaped like carrots. And then, when the scenery becomes a blur and David thinks they’re properly away from everything, he hops off his bike.

Matteo stumbles off his own bike and looks around. “So, what exactly is here?”

There isn’t anything here. David just wanted to get away. Matteo grins at David like he knows exactly what is happening, and that David has absolutely no clue where anything is outside of the main section of the city, but you know what? Maybe David had known where he was going. Matteo has no right to look so smug.

“I’m here,” David says easily, looking down at his own feet and back up as if to show Matteo:  _ yes _ , I am the main attraction.

Matteo just looks at him, smiling, like Matteo really would bike all the way out here just to see David every day if he had to. It’s nice. Being looked at like that. David can’t see his own expression but he knows it’s probably the same.

There’s a lot of words hanging there between them, like  _ don’t leave _ and  _ I’d stare at you forever _ and something a little stronger, but David doesn’t know what it is so he hides a smile and looks away. He scouts for a shady area in the soft grass past the carrot trees lining the road and gestures forward as he hikes his backpack up on his shoulders so that he doesn’t drop it. “Shall we?”

Matteo curtsies and says, “We shall.”

They leave their bikes propped up against the trees and sit in the grass where they can watch the road. David places his backpack between them. Matteo eyes it like he knows it has food, and David has to bat his hand away before he can even explain.

“You brought a picnic?” Matteo asks.

“No,” he deadpans.

“You did!” Matteo says in delight, and David snatches the bag away from where Matteo has tried grabbing it again. But Matteo gets a good grip and wiggles it away, and David lets him because it’s both adorable and amusing. 

There is indeed food in the bag. It’s nothing like David is sure Matteo could have brought from the restaurant but he bought fresh sandwich ingredients from the store and there was a good amount of effort put into putting things together. He did everything up until packing a blanket, because he couldn’t fit a blanket in the bag, and also, there were no blankets he could steal from the student apartments.

“Romantic,” Matteo teases.

“It’s just a picnic.”

“A romantic picnic,” Matteo disagrees, pulling out an apricot and pointing it at David pointedly.

“It’s just food,” David leaning forward on his hands to watch him, eyes sparkling, and waits to see how Matteo will counter that. David knows it’s a romantic picnic. It’s supposed to be a romantic picnic, and he’s smiling, and he knows that Matteo knows it too.

Matteo looks him dead in the eye, holds up the apricot, and says, “Gaypricot.”

Needless to say, Matteo wins that argument.

And then Matteo eats half of it in a very messy bite, juice running down his chin, and any attractiveness Matteo has should be completely ruined, it really should, but unfortunately there is no going back on David’s feelings now. Especially when he’s still laughing about the apricot joke and Matteo looks so goddamn pleased. And if David is being honest, even if this were somehow a choice, he wouldn’t take it back for the world. Matteo makes the world so much brighter.

It’s still a little gross though, and David wrinkles his nose, wishing he had thought to bring napkins. He hasn’t started to eat any food for himself, just content to watch Matteo for a minute, but Matteo catches him staring, looking a little confused. David panics, because that’s how processing emotions work, and tosses a sandwich at Matteo’s head, “I made sandwiches.”

“ _ Grazie, bellissimo _ ,” Matteo says carelessly.

David definitely does not know what to do with  _ that _ . Matteo doesn’t even seem to notice that he’s just accomplished the smoothest flirting David has seen in his life. Calling him beautiful like it’s nothing? Does he even know it’s flirting, or is he just saying it because it slipped out?

When Matteo catches him staring again, he winks, and David thinks he knows exactly what he’s doing. David throws another apricot at him while Matteo laughs.

They eat David’s picnic in the shade, legs thrown over each others, and passing a bag of chips back and forth after their sandwiches are gone. David doesn’t know when they’ll have to bike back but it’s nice to have this moment. It’s peaceful and sunny and David thinks he could sit like this, Matteo’s head resting drowsily in the crook of his shoulder, forever.

“David,” Matteo starts quietly, but he only says, “There’s a cat.”

There is indeed a cat. Wandering past them and living her everyday cat life. 

“Want to follow it?” Matteo asks mischievously.

David doesn’t know why they would, but he doesn’t know why they shouldn’t either, so he shrugs and says, “Sure.”

David shoves the rest of their food in his bag. Matteo stands, like he’s about to creep forward, but the cat doesn’t seem to be paying any attention. She weaves between a couple trees by the road, trotting along innocently. 

The second that Matteo and David take a step closer, her head snaps over to look at them.

“Hello, kitty,” Matteo greets softly, offering out a placating hand.

She bolts. Matteo takes one glance at David, David blinks back at him, and then they both chase after her. They run across the road and to the other side and David has no idea why they’re chasing this cat except that they agreed they would and he’s giggling and it’s fun and Matteo grips at his hand even though it would be faster if they weren’t connected and dragging each other forward.

The cat disappears behind a bush as they crash down a hill, feet skittering for flat land. Matteo pulls David forward and their limbs tangle and Matteo is the one to trip and fall, tumbling them to the ground and dragging David on top of him after they roll all the way down.

Matteo is still laughing underneath him and David thinks he’s the most beautiful person in the world. David thinks he scraped his elbow, he can feel the sting of it on his arm, but it doesn’t really matter at the moment.

“She escaped,” Matteo says, rather obviously.

David gives him a disbelieving laugh. “Yeah, she did.”

“I thought we would catch her,” Matteo lies.

“No, you didn’t,” David disagrees.

“Yes, I did.”

“No.”

“Well, maybe we could have.”

“Uh huh.”

They’re so close and David should probably get off of him so that Matteo can be let up but he doesn’t really want to. Matteo doesn’t seem to mind either. Instead he just smiles innocently underneath him, and quirks an eyebrow like he’s saying,  _ are you going to kiss me or what? _

David slowly ducks his head until their lips are only millimeters apart, both of them staring at each other as Matteo stops breathing entirely, and then rolls away and offers a hand down to Matteo brightly, “Are you getting up or what?”

Matteo stares up at him looking desperate. David calls it revenge for Matteo’s blatant Italian flirting. Matteo doesn’t take his hand.

“Asshole,” he chooses to whine.

“You love me,” David says cockily.

Matteo blinks and for a second everything seems frozen. David almost pulls away in fear that he said something he shouldn’t have. But then Matteo yanks him down, awkward and messy, and crashes their lips together and everything else fades. David gladly follows, his hands flying up to cup the side of Matteo’s face and let’s himself melt into it with a laugh.

There have been plenty of kisses since David has allowed himself this luxury. Weeks worth of kisses in fact, snuck when they can or as they wander the streets, but this. They are properly alone now. No room he shares with Essam, Matteo’s father nowhere nearby, and no one else in town to see them.

There is no space between them. They’re chest to chest and clinging to each other because of an unacknowledged deadline. Matteo’s hands wander from David’s hands, brushing the length of his arms until they’re looped over David’s shoulders and digging in his hair to keep him there. Not that David would want to move. 

He’s feeling unsteady and bold at the same time, and should probably be thinking things through a bit more, when they hear a soft  _ meow _ to their left. 

David’s thoughts are a fuzzy mess of  _ matteomatteomatteomatteo _ , and it takes him too long to realize there was another noise and also that,  _ the goddamn cat was watching them. _

It’s such an abrupt thought that David giggles. It stops their kissing, and it takes a second of horrified staring for Matteo to catch on to why he’s laughing. Matteo pouts. He makes grabby hands at David’s face, trying to pull him closer again, but David can’t stop.

This is his life now. He went to Italy for no other purpose than to make a film and complete some of his university credits, but instead he’s making out with someone who decided to chase a cat into the middle of nowhere and tripped down a hill.

“ _ Da- _ vid,” Matteo whines, and David swears they’re adults, he swears it, but fuck it, he’s twenty years old and never been in a serious relationship and he’s still giggling like a madman.

But he also really wants to continue kissing him. Matteo grins in victory as David ducks down again.

“You’re a hazard,” David informs Matteo’s smug face.

Matteo shrugs carelessly, “You love me.”

David doesn’t have time to really think about considering that. He’ll bring it up with his therapist when he gets back. She’ll be delighted. More progress in a month than a couple years with her.

He kisses Matteo again, softer. And then again and again, and neither of them seem to want the desperation from before, at least right now, so it turns lazy and quiet in the empty foothills. It feels like it could last forever, just he and Matteo, with no motivation at all except to be alone with each other.

Matteo’s fingers slip under David’s shirt, cold against his warm skin, and David comes to a screeching halt as common sense returns. Matteo’s fingers doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, just taking comfort in the small contact, but even so, they disappear when Matteo notices David’s hesitation.

“Sorry.” 

“No, it’s okay,” David says, and finds that he means it. “Just, um.”

He tries to find the words he wants to say, or what he’s willing to say at all, but he’s distracted by the sun setting in the distance. A godsend, really, until he realizes — 

“Matteo,” David says slowly. “Where’s the main road?”

“Uh,” Matteo says, looking around, and then swears. “Fuck.”

That’s not a good sign.

David gets up and grabs his backpack. They wander back where they came from, only to find it’s not where they came from at all. Everything is unfamiliar. David remembers the carrot trees lining the road and thinks if they could find those, they’d find their way back to their bikes, but they find a different section of trees all together, no bikes in sight, and David is starting to get a little panicked.

They do see the cat though, still wandering around, and it’s enough to convince David that maybe there’s a home nearby that could give them directions. Or maybe she’s a useless lead considering she was the one who led them all the way out here.

Matteo crouches down to approach the cat anyway, clicking his tongue. The cat looks up at him again, horrified. 

“Hey,” Matteo whispers. “Can you take us home?”

She continues staring with big yellow eyes and runs away again. They don’t bother following that time.

David is suddenly tired. The sun is setting and he wants to be back in the student apartments. What if they have to stay out here? Once the thought comes, he can’t shake it off. If they can’t find their way back, he’ll have to be able to take his binder off soon if he doesn’t want to worry about waking up feeling like his ribs are being suffocated, and it’s all a giant mess.

Matteo takes one look at him, and then grabs his hand to start walking. David follows. He doesn’t know where they are going, but Matteo knows the area more (maybe) and he seems confident about it, so it’s better than nothing.

They make their way back to where they were before they attempted finding the road again and then try a different direction. David hopes this is the right way. They are headed towards those trees again, and even though it is quickly becoming darker, he can still see the tops of them.

They don’t find their bikes but they do find the road. Matteo grins but David’s own smile is wary. They continue walking. They find their bikes but by then, it’s almost too dark to see the road when there aren’t any streetlights or places nearby. David thinks he knows in what direction the city is but that’s as fair as he’s willing to bet. He doesn’t know how far they biked.

“I bet someone will drive by,” Matteo offers, sitting down with his hands around his knees. “They could give us a ride.”

“Yeah,” David says, just to agree. It doesn’t look like any cars are coming. The sun already sets so late in the summer, around 10 or 11, and even considering the insane time Italians eat dinner, it’s hardly likely anyone will be coming by now.

“Hey,” Matteo says, elbowing David as he sits down. “Guess what?”

“What?” David asks.

“Maybe we could signal for some aliens to take us back.”

Despite himself, David laughs. It’s small, and Matteo hadn’t even been that funny, but Matteo looks so happy about it that David promises himself to try not to be such a buzzkill right now. Even if he is stressed, Matteo doesn’t deserve that.

“What if they eat us instead?”

“What if aliens are peaceful,” Matteo counters. “What if they just want friends?”

David admits, “I made my application film about aliens.”

Matteo gapes at him. “No way.”

“I did,” David laughs, suddenly very amused by the situation. “The main character, he wandered into his backyard to find an alien plotting to destroy planet Earth, and he had to try and stop him.”

“Did he stop him?” Matteo asks.

There’s a long pause before David answers, because he knows what his answer will say about him. About his mindset coming out of high school, and how alone he felt, how  _ alien _ , and how that had the potential to destroy everything around him.

“No,” he finally says.

It had been a good film, if not a little hopeless. It had gotten him into film school at the very least. When he pulled himself out of that hole, meeting the Mahmood’s and talking more with his sister and making friends in classes, he promised never to make an ending like that again. No one needs to feel hopeless, even if it’s “artistic”.

Matteo still graces him with an awed, “I bet it was badass.”

“Yeah, it was,” David says, offering a smile. 

He doesn’t know if it’s just because he’s anxious about it happening, but he can start to feel the ache in his ribs that tells him he’s been wearing his binder too long. He’d woken up too early to get the bikes, and he’d meant to be back by now if they hadn’t been distracted with that cat before getting completely lost.

He’s got two options: wait around for a car, or start hiking.

No cars come. David had been right, it’s far too late for that. So he stands and grabs the handlebars of his bike to start walking. If he gives Matteo the option to stay, he’s afraid Matteo will choose to sleep by the side of the road and wait for someone in the morning, but luckily Matteo follows suit without asking what he is doing.

He doesn’t want to wear his backpack anymore. He considers just playing it cool and wearing it anyway but he already knows he’ll be sore in the morning, especially with the distance they have to walk while still being able to breath, and he doesn’t want to make it push it, so he throws it at Matteo with a smirk and says, “Your turn.”

Matteo catches it with a pout, and sticks out his tongue when he sees David grinning smugly as he puts it on.

“No fair,” Matteo whines, even though he is literally already wearing the backpack. David  _ had _ brought a picnic. It was pretty fair. “You were in advanced gym. I can barely ride a bike.”

“You won our game,” David points out, because Matteo had indeed won their first game. He’d won because he was remarkably good at coming up with ridiculous point systems and also because he had literally wrestled David to the ground, but he won nonetheless. 

“Oh yeah,” Matteo says, smirking. “I did.”

“I was distracted,” David excuses, because he’s still got a touch of pride.

“Was  _ I  _ distracting?” Matteo asks slyly, worming his way to David’s side with wiggling eyebrows.

David lifts one hand from his bike handlebars as they walk and uses it to draw him closer for a small peck. “Yeah, you were.”

Matteo preens and kisses him again.

They don’t try biking, both because there’s a lot uphill and it’s very dark. It feels like it had been infinitely easier going long distances without noticing when they’d both been racing without a lot of pedaling. David will have to apologize to Marco for not returning the bikes tonight or wake up early again to give them back. Matteo has work tomorrow and David has class, and just like that, it won’t be a day to themselves anymore.

He doesn’t know how long they walk until they pass the fork in the road and David thinks he remembers the rest of the way back. Matteo recognizes the area too. It doesn’t take long until they see the lights of the hilltop city in the distance. Time seems to go by faster when they can see the finish line, but by then David’s legs are sore and so is literally everything else. His breathing is getting more harsh, worse than Matteo’s. 

Today’s plan had been reckless. Bike as far out as they could go with no map? Stray from the road? Risk his health just because he wants to keep this secret just for a couple weeks more? He has no idea if Essam is still awake and if he’s worried, or what time it is at all. Matteo is quiet too, because now he has to go home, and David realizes that he had no idea if his dad is the type of person to wait up for him too. He knows that Matteo getting caught coming home late is worse than David, and feels guilty for not thinking about it before.

“Sorry,” David says, as Matteo hands him the backpack and the bike outside the student apartments. “I didn’t mean for us to stay out this late, or-”

Matteo gives him a hug. David ignores the squeezing of his ribs and closes his eyes. They don’t say anything for a long while until Matteo pulls away.

“It’s good with you,” Matteo says. His cheeks look a little red, like he’s embarrassed to admit it, but he does anyway because that’s the type of boy he is. He says what he means, and he’s kind, and he doesn’t hold stuff in. 

David’s heart squeezes, in the good way, and he longs to say something but he doesn’t know what. It happens sometimes, this lack of words. David is a much more visual person, finding what needs to be said in sketches or film. 

“It’s good with you too,” David parrots, because although it isn’t the words he is looking for, Matteo says it like it might mean the same thing.

Matteo smiles, all crinkly-eyed and happy. They both look up toward David’s window, where the light is still on. 

“Essam is waiting for you,” Matteo comments. He sounds a bit sad, and whether it’s because they have to leave each other now or because his dad may or may not be waiting too, David is too afraid to ask.

He should invite him up. They could cuddle all night and Essam would tease them and in the morning they could go pick up pastries before Matteo’s shift, and it would all be good. But he really needs to change and he doesn’t know how well he could handle an explanation right now, so instead he just nods.

“Good luck,” he says, just in case Matteo needs it returning home.

Matteo offers a small smile before leaving, and that hurts a little too. David watches only a second longer before unlocking the door and slowly climbs the stairs, ignoring the fact he really should not have been out this late, just for Essam to envelop him in a giant hug at their floor.

“Essam,” David chokes out. “Please let go.”

“Right! Sorry!” Essam exclaims, letting go of him right away to hold his at arms length to make sure he’s not fatally wounded or something, before ushering him to the room, hissing, “It’s three in the morning.”

“I never took you for the mothering type,” David deadpans.

Essam glares and waits until David finishes changing in the bathroom before saying, “Amira told me not to let you be an idiot.”

That checks out. Amira always was the more responsible of the three of them, although why Essam would go along with anything his older sister asked was a mystery. And why she would ask Essam, resident idiot of the group, to make sure David wasn’t an idiot is straight up baffling.

“You’ve been out this late all the time,” David points out, falling on his bed and closing his eyes. He tries to relax and luckily, it feels like there’s a pressure off his back (quite literally true).

The thing about being in a foreign country is that some of the students have gone insane without any supervision. Wine drunk in the evenings and late night parties when they don’t have class the next day, and Essam sometimes goes. David hopes he doesn’t drink. He’s been a couple times when Matteo had work and Essam seemed fine, but it’s not like Essam is the only one who needs to worry.

People do things they shouldn’t when they try to fit in.

“Yeah, but-” Essam says, fading off when he looks painfully toward where David has put his clothes he’d been wearing all day, binder included.

David can’t wait until his top surgery, when he doesn’t have to worry about being out too long or staying the night somewhere and people don’t needlessly add their worry to what David already knows. He and Laura have been saving up money on top of his college fund and they’re almost there. Only a couple more months until they can talk to his doctor but until then- “I’m fine.”

Essam is quiet for a moment before saying, “Okay.”

David can tell he was a bit harsh about it, and hates that he sometimes gets this way where he pushes people away even when things are better. He sighs and shifts to look over at him, “How was your night?”

“I think a girl likes me,” Essam says gleefully, jumping on the opportunity.

“Italian?” David asks.

“No, Jamilla,” Essam says. And because David literally has no name recognition, he clarifies, “She’s part of the acting program like Stefan.”

That would explain why David doesn’t know her. Maybe that’s what he should try to do in the time he has left. Try to join the rest of the students here, so he’ll go back home with more than a couple films to show for his experience and Matteo (please let him bring Matteo).

“Nice,” David smiles.

“Thanks, bro,” Essam grins. David rolls his eyes, trying to look happy. He is happy. A girl in their program is easier than whatever mess of words he can’t quite fit together to bridge together whatever he and Matteo have. And Essam deserves someone who is interested in him.

Essam looks around as if wondering what to do now that they’re both in bed and then goes to turn off the light. 

Into the darkness, David can hear Essam say wistfully, “I love Italy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is 1/5 of everything I have written. 6000 words of kissing, and I don't even like kissing. You're welcome.  
Also I'm reading Call Down the Hawk and if anyone needs to rant about it or just in general talk about The Raven Cycle, it is time for those feels, and you should definitely message me on tumblr.


	8. tell me more, tell me more

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David starts working on editing his documentary and realizes some things.

David returns the bikes to Marco. He goes to class and shows his teacher a rough cut of his narrative film. He ends up having lunch with Essam and Jamilla before being dragged out to a celebration of the end of everyone’s filming dates. 

The comradery here is nice even if David hasn’t really been involved much. It’s completely possible that they think of him as David: the pretentious art kid who doesn’t deign to interact with most of them when he’s working. This is probably true but it’s not because he thinks he’s above them. It’s because being known is terrifying. It’s easier to be the pretentious art kid.

The next day, he gets to work on his documentary project. He’s got footage after footage of Matteo laughing, smiling, kicking David’s ass at Mario Kart and being smug about it, and that footage of them in the kitchen a couple of weeks ago when Matteo had pretended they were a vlog before making the most chaotic pasta David had seen. David smiles.

He has no idea how this will be a documentary, but it’s probably the best footage he had been lucky enough to capture this entire summer. Maybe his entire life.

He clicks play on the first video. 

On the screen, Matteo stirs together a pot of sauce as he tells a joke. They’d fallen into a pun competition, and David had thought they were hilarious at the time but listening to them now, they seem impossibly stupid. It somehow makes it funnier. 

“What’s the secret to this sauce?” David is asking behind the camera. “What makes it true Italian?”

“It’s all about the attitude,” Matteo says, mock-seriously, still following his fake vlog-style persona. 

“So what attitude should I aim toward?” David asks.

“Saucy,” Matteo grins and then winks. David can hear himself laugh. The real David can’t help but laugh too.

“Really?” the David in his earbuds asks. “That’s all it takes?”

“That and you have to be Italian,” Matteo says smugly.

“Weird, because I thought you were German. You sound like an im-pasta to me.”

Now it’s Matteo’s turn to laugh. He flicks pasta sauce at David and the screen becomes blurry with David’s desperate attempt to shield the lens. In the background, he can still hear both of them laughing as if expensive camera equipment hadn’t been in danger of being sauced.

It goes on and on like that. Ridiculous clip after ridiculous clip, and none of it very professional. Or at least, Matteo never is. He acts like this hadn’t been to help David with an assignment at all -- and maybe it hadn’t been. Time together, it becomes clear, was the only goal of all of these. He listens to the clips of Matteo telling him about his life in Berlin compared to this small Italian town and ranting about how silly his friends are. When he talks about his mom, his eyes sparkle. 

It feels invasive to put these out into the world, their own private bubble that David somehow recorded. And they’re only a couple moments. David can’t pin down what makes them so invasive, but he knows there’s a certain angle to the camera and a certain charm in their voices that gives them away.

Matteo looks at someone behind the camera, all smiling cheeks and bright blue eyes, and David can feel the same swoopy feeling he remembers getting that very same day and he knows what it is.

David’s in love with him. Weird how that shows through a camera.

Fuck.

How long has David been in love with him? At least a week, based on the timestamp of the video, but David wouldn’t be surprised if he had fallen in love the day they’d first gotten to know each other. And he hadn’t even noticed. They had ridden bikes around and kissed and done stupid shit like it hadn’t mattered and that it’d all be done when the summer was over. It’s really his fault about the summer deadline too, he was just so scared-

If Matteo rejects him now, David doesn’t want to know how much it’d hurt.

He shouldn’t have waited. Or maybe he should have. He can just… wait out the rest of the summer. Never tell him, never get his heart broken, but then never see Matteo again. David doesn’t like any of those options. 

It’s fine. He’s just panicking, but hey, he’s never been in love before. For some reason, he’d never considered it as a possibility. A daydream, sure, a couple of years from now when he had graduated and there was a time in his plan, he’d meet someone in the marketplace and the rest would be history, but now? When it’s real?

Now, it’s just terrifying how much he’s feeling.

He’d talk it through with Essam but the other boy was busy with his new lady love and no one else knows him well enough to help him figure out what to do. Not here at least. He scrolls through his phone for Laura and then remembers she’s on a business trip the next couple of days and wouldn’t want to be interrupted. 

Which just leaves --

Amira blinks onto the screen of his laptop after a couple of rings, the apartment she shares with her roommate, Sam, appearing in the background. It’s enough of a familiar setting that David feels his nerves dissipating, especially as Amira smiles back at him.

“David!” she greets, settling in on a couch. “I hope you’re not calling about Essam, I _ told _ him not to be annoying.”

“Essam is fine,” David assures her. “Apparently you also told him not to let me be an idiot.”

“And have you been an idiot?” Amira asks, eyeing him as if she knows. He wonders how many stories she’s managed to get out of Essam.

David shrugs. Around Amira, he can feel the “I fell in love with someone” slipping easily out of him.

Amira finishes setting up her computer on the table for his unexpected call and leans forward on her hands, “That boy Essam told me you’ve been hanging out with?”

“Yeah,” David says. 

“And you didn’t want to tell me about it?” she asks. It’s nonjudgemental but David still feels bad.

“I-” David tries to find the words to explain why he hadn’t really told anyone at home, but only ends up with the much too honest realization of, “If no one knew and it didn’t work out, I could come back and pretend it never happened.”

“But you’re calling me,” Amira says. She seems smug. “So it worked out.”

“How’d you know you were in love?” David asks instead.

Amira’s cheeks turn pink as he reminds her of Mohammed. Last time he checked, Mohammed was ready to propose but Amira wanted to graduate university first and now after she had graduated early, they wanted Essam in town for it too. David is willing to give them a couple more months. If there’s any relationship he wants advice from, it’s theirs. 

“I don’t know,” she smiles, and then on cue, she follows up with, “He makes me smile. I think I knew when I realized that I didn’t want a life without him and that I didn’t have to give up part of my faith to have him either.”

“How’d you know that everything would turn out okay?” David asks quietly.

This is the more important question. It’s not the same, obviously, but David thinks they’re both sacrificial. Amira had almost rejected Mohammed because she didn’t know how he’d fit in her life. Now here David is, preemptively rejecting Matteo because he’s afraid of their future failing as well.

Amira tugs on her hoodie strings and shrugs. “We talked about it. Are you worried about him coming back to Berlin?”

“No,” David says defensively.

Amira gives him one of her signature eyebrow quirks. 

“I haven’t told him that I’m trans,” David gives in.

“But you love him,” Amira clarifies again.

David thinks of Matteo telling those stupid puns and smiles. Amira laughs, poking at the screen like she could point out his traitorous cheeks. David runs his hand through his hair so that he doesn’t have to see her obnoxiously happy face. This is a real Serious Issue.

“David,” Amira says, finally following the tone he wants. “You’ve got to tell him eventually.”

“I don’t,” David argues. “I could just leave for the summer and move on.”

“You could,” Amira agrees. “But do you want to risk a life without him? Or would you regret it?”

The answer is that David feels like he could spend every day with Matteo and never regret a thing. It’s either tell Matteo his secrets or let him slip away, and there’s only a chance of him staying if David allows him that answer. 

“Habibi,” Amira reminds him softly. “Not everyone is your parents. And no matter what, you’ve got me and Essam and Laura. We’re your family.”

She sounds like his therapist. David has a habit of not listening to his therapist about certain issues, but she also reminds him that Berlin doesn’t have to be his safety net. He’s got people who can do that for him.

“Thanks, Amira,” David says sheepishly. “Sorry if I interrupted anything.”

Amira waves him away easily, taking her laptop back with her as she sits back on the couch, all seriousness over. “You should hear the calls I get from Mia. She’s a friend in Madrid, and somehow things are always complicated. And don’t get me started on Sam- she has crazy stories.”

“Who knew the fashion industry could be so dramatic?” David deadpans, and Amira laughs.

“Exactly. Besides! I need to hear about Italy from someone who isn’t Essam. Other than your boy, what have you been up to? How is the food?”

“Best gelato ever,” David starts, taking relief in the change in topic. For now, it’s just catching up with a friend.

When he heads by Pasta Della Florenzi later to talk to Matteo, Matteo is not there. 

For some reason, this hadn’t happened before, mostly because there are only so many employees at the restaurant and Matteo is the only other Florenzi there. He works all the time. And if he isn't working, he usually tracks down David himself.

David meets eyes with Matteo’s father as he finishes pouring a drink for someone at the bar, but instead of just turning away as he has gotten in the habit of doing, Matteo’s father looks him dead in the eye. David is suddenly a little scared. Not for himself, but for where Matteo might be. He should have checked up with him the day after they returned late that night, instead of agreeing to go with Essam to meet up with some of the other students.

_He’s getting groceries,_ David soothes himself. _ They ran out of potatoes and need more. Or he doesn’t have a shift and wanted time to himself. He’s fine. _

Vincenzo makes excuses to the couple at the bar and moves to lean against the doorway and stare David down.

“I told you this would happen,” he starts. “Matteo’s in his room, he’s not getting up for work.”

“Today?” David asks.

“Since yesterday,” Vincenzo corrects. “When he came back after that chaotic trip of yours.”

David nods. He knows Vincenzo is helping him by telling him where Matteo is, some weird form of mutual relation to him, but doesn’t know how to feel about that. He thinks that Matteo’s father cares about Matteo too, he’s just wrong about who Matteo can be. David doesn’t owe him forgiveness for that. 

“David,” Vincenzo starts again, right as David is about to walk away. “He hasn’t been very happy here since his mother stopped coming with him. But you two seem happy, no matter how much trouble you seem, so if he won’t listen to me, maybe he’ll listen to you. I can’t have a third day of him not working.”

David doesn’t promise anything. Instead, he just turns and leaves, his footsteps getting faster on the cobble the closer he gets to the Florenzi family home.

It only takes him a couple of minutes to get there before knocking on the door, calling out, “Matteo?”

There’s no answer. David checks under the doormat and then a potted plant where he finds a front door key and lets himself in. The house is quiet. It makes David itch, just like the first time he had stepped inside.

“Matteo?” he asks again

Again, no answer. 

David skips the living room and kitchen, heading for the door he had seen Matteo come and go from before and knocks again. Something shuffles inside but doesn’t open the door or clarify that Matteo is there. David hesitates and then twists the handle to open the door just a sliver. 

Despite the heat outside, Matteo has cocooned himself in a blanket and is staring at the door like he’s waiting to see who it is. When it’s David, he blinks slowly and doesn’t say a word. 

David takes in the sight of his room, messy and chaotic and very Matteo, and the way that everything is scattered with no energy to pick it up. David hasn't been in here before. There’s a window with the curtains drawn, cutting out the brightness of the summer, and it makes everything look as tired and grey as the rest of the house. David wants to open up the window and see what everything looks like when it’s bright and sunny, but he looks at Matteo and remembers Vincenzo telling him about his mother and how Matteo could be the same and knows the windows aren’t the priority.

He wants to tell Matteo that he loves him and that he’s trans, but now is not the time for either.

“Hey,” David greets gently. “Do you want me to go?”

It takes a while for Matteo to think it through but he lifts the corner of his blanket out to David. David slips off his shoes and drops his bag by the door in order to pad across the floor to lay next to him on the bed. Matteo gives him part of the blanket to drape himself under and they lay facing each other without touching. Matteo doesn’t tell him to and David doesn’t ask.

But Matteo smiles, the corner of his lips twisting up gratefully, before closing his eyes. He looks peaceful, in his room and under his blankets, even if David doesn’t think he actually is. Matteo’s breath becomes thin and steady, small little huffs that David can feel against his side, and then he sleeps.

David looks around the room again, this time with a new perspective. There are plates with unfinished food and crumbs by the bed and he doesn’t see any sign that Matteo has moved since- what was it his father had said? At least since they had gotten back from their bike ride. 

He doesn’t know what to do in this situation. Was it triggered by something, how long did this usually last? When was the last time he had eaten and what did he usually do to get better? If it was something that he could bring himself to get better with at all.

It’s one thing to suspect someone is depressed, and another thing to see what it means first hand.

With no idea how long it’ll take for Matteo to wake up, David carefully slides out of the blankets and into the kitchen. He’s not a chef, or even good at cooking like Matteo, but he can steal crackers from one of the shelves and pour a glass of water because it looks like will Matteo need it. On his way back to the bed, he slips his laptop out of his bag and settles in for a long day.

David gets to work.

A couple of hours later, he feels Matteo shift next to him and looks over to see him staring like he’s surprised David is still here. David only smiles. It feels too quiet to talk, and Matteo hasn’t said a word since David arrived, but David speaks anyway with a soft, “Hey.”

Matteo opens his mouth and then closes it again. No talking for Matteo then. David can handle that. 

“Want to see what I’m working on?” David asks.

Matteo glances at his computer and then nods. 

David scoots closer so that Matteo can see his screen. He’s been rewatching the cooking footage and Matteo’s mouth quirks upward when he sees it. David doesn’t want to touch Matteo just in case that's intruding but Matteo solves that issue when he shuffles closer and leans on David’s side. David offers him an earbud.

David listens to the clips but doesn’t watch them. Instead, he watches the Matteo next to him who is making a face as he watches the videos. It’s the cute face he makes sometimes when he scrunches his nose up, looking embarrassed. David kisses the top of his head. Matteo still looks sad. 

They begin to watch all of them, even two-second clips of David forgetting he had turned on the camera and quickly turning it off and the footage that David doesn’t plan on using. Matteo groans whenever he does something stupid and buries his nose in David’s neck. But he still watches. It gets to the clips with him talking about his mother before he looks away. 

David gets the hint. He closes his laptop, cutting off the sound of the next video, and pulls the earbuds out of their ears. He sets them on the floor. He trades his laptop for the glass of water he had set on the bedside table and offers it forward. Matteo’s eyebrows fold together.

“I thought you might be thirsty,” David explains quietly.

Matteo doesn’t look willing to unbury his arms from his blanket cocoon. David doesn’t want to think about how sweaty it would be under there or how long he’d been letting himself hide, but he knows he’s got to do something. He continues to hold out the water with a quiet, “_ Matteo _.”

The Matteo says, _I care about you_. It says, _you need to drink water_. It says, _please let me help. _

One of Matteo’s hands comes poking out of the blankets to take the glass of water. After a few sips, he hands it back. David takes that as a victory. He sets it back down.

“Want to talk about it?” he asks.

Matteo shakes his head, but then clarifies with a dry, “Life’s got me fucked up right now.”

“Your dad,” David guesses.

“I miss mama,” Matteo mutters. 

They’re twenty years old and still figuring themselves out. They love parents they’re not supposed to, they miss family who cares, they’re away from home and on their own. It’s harder to meet up with friends when you’re no longer in high school, with the same people every day, or even in the same country and every problem seems like your own. No wonder life has gotten them a little fucked up.

“Have you called her?” David asks quietly.

Matteo nods. 

“Is she doing okay?”

Another nod. David resists the urge to ask if Matteo is okay because the answer is self-evident.

“Did something happen?”

Matteo stares at him. He doesn’t say it, and it takes a minute to understand, but David gets it. David happened. He shouldn’t have waited this long.

“Hey,” David whispers, pulling Matteo into a hug. These layers of blankets are hell, they feel like they’re suffocating, but David sticks it through. “I’m not leaving you.”

Matteo nods. It takes a while but he finally drinks the rest of the water. He naps a bit. His father comes and goes between lunch and dinner hours but doesn’t bother them in his room. Matteo eats the rest of the crackers David brought in and when it comes time for dinner, he manages to worm Matteo from his bed and onto a kitchen stool as he makes something from a can. 

That night, he’s careful with his binder. He takes it off in the bathroom while Matteo sleeps, sends a text to Essam saying he won’t be there that night, and crawls into bed a couple of feet away. When he wakes up, he can feel Matteo’s arms around him and panics for a second thinking that Matteo will notice and then realizes that he’s going to have to tell the truth anyway.

He crawls up and changes in the bathroom again.

There’s a knock on Matteo’s door. When David opens it, Vincenzo looks completely unsurprised to see him. “We need Matteo on shift today. There are too many people gone today to cover him.”

David looks back at Matteo on the bed. He doesn’t know what state he’ll wake up in, but he knows the chances of it being something that is willing to talk to people all day and take their orders at work. Even if he’d be able to do it, he’d hate it.

“He can’t,” David says decisively.

“Don’t encourage him to sleep in so much,” Vincenzo advises.

David narrows his eyes and steps outside of Matteo’s room to close the door behind him. “Don’t make him do things he doesn’t want to do, or it’ll make it worse.”

He’s being bold, even more so considering that this is an adult and the father of the boy he’s literally in love with, but he’s a little sick of parents who think they know best while being completely wrong. His parents hadn’t liked him being trans and tried to offer other “solutions” and now this. David knows his parents had cared about him but they didn’t love who he truly was, and that’s not the kind of love to rely on.

“He needs to put in more effort, try to be happier,” Vincenzo tries arguing but David cuts him off.

“You just told me he has been happy.”

“With you-”

“Yeah, with me. Because I make him happy. You should work on that, or one day, you’ll never see him again.”

Vincenzo stares in surprise. David wishes he was filled with a little regret for even saying something like that, he doesn’t know Matteo and his dad’s relationship enough to really comment on it, but he always had a habit of holding things in too long. And David's been angry at parents for a very long time.

When Vincenzo doesn’t say anything, David offers, “I’ll take Matteo’s shift this morning. I know the menus and enough Italian if you really need someone to help.”

Vincenzo gives him a stiff nod and then escapes out the door to start opening up shop. David collects his things in his laptop bag and then grabs a scrap of paper off of Matteo’s desk to write him a note, and then follows Vincenzo outside.

Being a waiter, surprisingly, is not as bad as he thought it’d be. He already knows half the customers from sitting out here so often, and the rest seem to catch onto the fact Italian is not a language that he is fluent in. Tourists are annoying, he sort of hates them, but English seems to go over well. He only messes up on translating a few orders. Plates are passed back and forth between he and Vincenzo in silence, and as often as possible, any interaction is filtered through one of the employees helping out in the kitchen.

“David!” Essam greets, looking completely baffled and delighted to see David working at Pasta Della Florenzi when he gets there some time some time past the lunch rush. “What’re you doing here? Where were you last night?”

“Matteo isn’t feeling great,” he whispers, siding up to him while everyone else is busy eating. “I sort of took his place?”

“Whipped,” Essam teases, which. Duh. “So does that mean you know the entire menu?”

David repeats the specials for the day in Italian. Essam looks properly impressed. One of the regulars that David has gotten to know over the summer corrects some of his pronunciation which ruins the effect of him being all-knowing, but still. 

“How’s your project going?” David asks after. 

Essam falls into the seat of an open table, groaning. “It’s so much to edit, I don’t know where to start. I haven’t started. I’m procrastinating and it’s due in a few days.”

“I haven’t started my doc,” David offers.

“Really?” Essam’s head pops up with bright, hopeful eyes, and David laughs. “We’re in the same situation! Everyone thought you’d be already done.”

“I can’t figure out the story,” David shrugs.

Essam gives him a sympathetic pat on the arm. “You’ll figure it out. Hey, after this, we can help each other out! I’m just procrastinating again.”

David thinks of Matteo back in his bedroom and wonders if he’s awake yet and if he found his note. He should meet up with Essam for a second opinion and finish this film in time for the deadline, but he can’t focus knowing there’s something more important to do.

“I think I’ll spend the rest of the day with Matteo,” David says apologetically. “Since, he’s, you know…” _ unwell_.

“Sure,” Essam nods. “Tomorrow then. Just don’t get sick, dude. Sick on the last week of summer vacation? That’d be a nightmare.”

“I won’t,” David assures him with a smile. 

“Awesome,” Essam grins, which then fades into something a little quieter. “You’re a good dude, David. Matteo’s lucky to have you.”

“Yeah,” David says instead of, _ I’m lucky to have Matteo_.

“Fling thing didn’t really work out for you did it?” Essam asks, a hint of teasing.

“Guess not,” David laughs. 

“So he’s coming back with us?”

“I don’t know,” David tries to shrugs casually but he doesn’t think he manages. There’s a lot of things to be overwhelmed with at the moment, with Matteo’s depression, and David failing to communicate that he’s trans, and being in love anyway despite not ever planning on it.

“You’ll make it work,” Essam assures him, holding out his fist for one of those comforting bro fistbumps. David scoffs but bumps it anyway.

Then Essam sees something behind him and claps him on the shoulder as he stands, winking. “See you tomorrow, Schreibner.”

David turns, not sure exactly who Essam had seen, and comes face to face with Matteo, bedraggled and tired but dressed and standing in front of him. Matteo takes one look at his apron and huffs.

“Stealing my job?”

“Wasn’t sure if you’d be up for it.”

Matteo shrugs, and David can still see that apathetic weariness to it. He’s glad Matteo is out and about but the tourists that David has already faced today would have been miserable for him.

David flips open Matteo’s notebook and cocks his head challengingly. “Anything I can get you today?”

Matteo smiles like he didn’t mean to. He slumps down into the seat that Essam had just vacated. David knows there are some tables that might need water refills by now but they both know that Matteo’s father had been lucky enough just to get someone to fill in. David sits across from him.

“I’m sorry,” Matteo says morosely.

“Don’t be,” David assures him. “I’m sorry if I…”

Well, he’s not sure what he did. He knows it could be any number of things, like not being as open as he could be or making this stupid decision to confine their relationship, whatever it is, to this single summer. He didn’t check up on Matteo either after staying up late or invite him to stay over. 

“Whatever it is that you won’t tell me, I won’t hate you,” Matteo mutters. David grabs his hand on the table. “I don’t think I could ever…”

“I know,” David assures him. Assures himself, really. He looks around at the restaurant and then pulls Matteo up. This is not the place. “You want to get out of here?”

There’s that smile again, careful in a way that Matteo isn’t usually, but also really hopeful. David doesn’t want to ruin him.

“What about work?” Matteo asks.

David unties his apron and tosses it onto the chair with a shrug and a grin, “They’ll find someone to replace me.”

Matteo scoffs. He looks inside and David follows his gaze to his father watching them. This is not a good impression, running out on the job all the time, but it isn’t as if he couldn't expect it. David squeezes Matteo’s hand and leads him away. 

He doesn’t know the way to the abandoned building from before. Matteo had taken so many shortcuts between alleyways and small side roads that David can’t retrace it, but Matteo seems to know where they’re going. They duck under some hanging laundry to get to the small window they had crawled through before. David wonders where the door is.

He crawls in first and then holds a hand out to Matteo to help him down. Matteo doesn’t need it but takes it anyway. They don’t let go, not even when David finds themselves sitting in that room with the vampire windows, cross-legged and across from each other like a camp confessional circle. 

David looks up at the windows and takes a deep breath. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all. But to be fair, this was where Matteo had come out to him before while they were joking about parties, and David had shared a bit of himself too. It makes sense that they'd be here again, even when he's coming to the terrifying realization that there's nowhere to escape if things go wrong. He'd have to find the door or crawl out the window again.

“I have depression,” Matteo admits first, breaking any tension. He seems to realize David doesn't know how to start. “My mom has it too, and if I don’t take my medication, sometimes it takes weeks for me to focus again. That’s why… I thought I was happier so I stopped, and then I remembered that you’re leaving. So. Sorry you had to deal with that.”

_ I love you_, David wants to say. _ It’s not dealing with you, it’s getting to be around you. _

“It’s okay,” David says instead. 

“No,” Matteo counters immediately. Forcefully. He emphasizes, “_ You _ shouldn’t have to.”

There’s a lot behind that. Matteo doesn’t want that to scare David away. But it also breaks the lightheartedness of the rest of the summer where they pretended nothing was wrong in their lives. They’re only supposed to be together when there’s nothing in the way.

“Matteo,” David says quietly, and then doesn’t know what to say. Or he does, but he doesn’t know how to get there.

Matteo tries to move his hands away but David holds tight. Matteo seems to get the hint that this is not going to be a bad thing because he relaxes and watches David with curious eyes even when David doesn’t meet them. He’s still looking up at the ceiling. There’s that saying about how eyes are windows to the soul and David doesn’t want Matteo seeing any more than he’s already giving up.

“I’m trans,” he admits quietly. It seems such a simple thing to say for it to have so much weight behind it. “That’s what I haven’t told you, and I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to lose you if you weren’t okay with that.”

Across from him, Matteo lets out a long breath, and David can’t tell what that means. He closes his eyes, gathers his courage, and looks at him. Matteo stares back at him, and his eyes must reveal too much, because suddenly, Matteo is reaching forward and pulling him into a hug.

“That’s okay,” Matteo echoes.

David falls back into him and they both hold each other. David wants to both laugh and cry at the mess the two of them make, but he’s too relieved to do anything but grip Matteo closer so he won’t leave. Matteo doesn’t even try to pull away.

When David shifts, it’s just to rest his forehead against Matteo’s and smile. When he opens his eyes, Matteo is smiling too. He’s not asking further questions and David is fine with dealing with those later, if they come. He certainly has questions for Matteo.

Matteo suddenly laughs, falling back on his butt as he giggles out in realization, “You left my shift.”

David shrugs, and lets himself grin, “They weren’t that busy.”

“I’m going to be fired,” Matteo says in awe.

David snorts. “You’re not going to be fired. They can’t fire you. Your dad is never going to let me in again though.”

Matteo pouts but David leans forward to kiss it away. He’s mostly joking about not being allowed back, but he’s certainly not going to be able to negotiate into taking another one of Matteo’s shifts again. There’s only a week left anyway. And then-

“What part of Berlin are you from?” he asks abruptly.

“Moabit,” Matteo answers and then nudges his foot so that he’ll get an answer too.

“Me too,” David grins.

“What?” Matteo laughs in surprise. “We could have gone to the same school.”

There’s no way they went to the same school. David would have seen him. High school might not have been as miserable (with the exception of Amira and the rest of the Mahmood’s, but she hadn’t gone to the same school either). He had survived at Laura’s old school, a bit farther out than the most convenient option, but she had known enough teachers to have enough sway on keeping the knowledge of him being trans minimized.

“We’ll have to find a place where we can meet up when we get back,” David says casually.

“You owe me expressos,” Matteo says innocently.

This time it’s David’s turn to kick at his feet as he laughs, offended, “You snuck me those for free!”

Matteo smiles smugly, shrugging, “Product isn't free.”

David leans forward. They’re still holding their hands between them. Matteo’s face softens as he gets closer until David feels close enough to whisper. “How about I buy the first one, and then you buy me coffee after?”

Boom. Two dates already implied for when they get back.

“Okay,” Matteo agrees easily.

David takes in Matteo’s lazily thrown on t-shirt and remembers the other day, laying in bed all day and his apathetic naps, and knows that this won’t be easy. It won’t be easy for Matteo either, staying out late enough had proven that, and David has his own doctor's orders. And a therapist, which is always a good sign for mental health, but he suspects Matteo might have one too.

“Are you okay?” he asks quietly, with the reminder of yesterday.

“I will be,” Matteo assures him and then says quietly, “Thank you for trusting me.”

Trusting, not telling. David can’t put together the words on why that feels significant but it does. Perhaps it's because he doesn’t trust very often. 

He kisses him and it says, _ I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Amira has been a character in the tags since this story was published because I knew David was going to Facetime her at some point but it took 8 chapters to get here, you're welcome.
> 
> It's been over a month since my last chapter, I've been busy being immobilized by yearning. Also I can only focus in coffee shops and my car was given to my younger brother, so rip my car and also my younger brother when I kill him. Shoutout to everyone that messaged me asking when the next chapter was, especially the person who implied that I plan on having David leave Matteo in Italy. You haunt me. I also have two more chapters, and that should haunt you.
> 
> I hope you all had great holidays, and that you're heading into the new year with a positive attitude! Especially with Druck s5! We did it, kids. We won.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back in business! I just started school, so this is me pretending it's still summertime like it evidently is in Druck. This is also just an exploratory chapter that will likely get a whole story but I wanted to post because I was excited about it! So currently: short description, somewhat short chapter. 
> 
> on tumblr @amirathelegend or my main @allhail-queen-nerd


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